Ross Jami-LeeJAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): Mr Assistant Speaker thank you. The National Party opposes this shortened report back and I say that the House should really think carefully about the continued use by the Government of its majority to curtail proper parliamentary scrutiny of important pieces of legislation—and actually by the trend we're seeing important pieces of legislation that involve taxation and that involve benefits to individuals—and whether this House should continue to allow this.The reason I say this is because I think we're starting to see quite a worrying trend by this Government—a Government made up of parties which would have been very opposed with a very principled view that they would have taken when they were sitting on this side of the House. They were the ones often saying that the curtailing of the parliamentary scrutiny of legislation should not happen. We're seeing time after time now in a very short space of this Government's existence that they are using their majority in a way which I feel is actually inappropriate. This isn't the first time. We saw not that long ago the brightline test Supplementary Order Paper coming into the House without select committee scrutiny. The paid parental leave legislation was done under urgency; it skipped select committee last year. The Family Incomes Package was put through under urgency last year where select committee processes were skipped and now we are seeing that the regional fuel tax legislation whilst going to a select committee is having a significantly reduced report-back time.I'm told by people that follow these things closer than I do that individuals that wish to submit on this bill—when you take out the time required for the committee to do initial briefings and the time for the committee to hear submissions and time for the committee to consider the possible changes they may wish to make—will have approximately eight days to do so.Are we really saying in this Parliament that a Minister can present to the House a piece of legislation which will implement a tax that we've not seen in this country since the 1990s and that it can go through an extremely shortened report-back period which will result in only about eight days for submissions? Is that really a good process? Is this really so urgent that it has to be done this quickly? I in fact think that this should go through a proper process; that New Zealanders should have an opportunity to submit.We're going to hear—possibly in contributions on this debate; we have heard it already in the last debate—that Aucklanders want this and that this is required and it's necessary. Well I think that should actually be tested properly through a select committee process. New Zealanders—and it's not just Aucklanders in this case—will be impacted by this from 2021. They should have an opportunity to submit as well because it's not just about an Auckland issue. It's all been dressed up as being about Auckland and all the consultation that we've heard about has supposedly been about just Auckland but actually this will impact on New Zealanders as well.There are also varying accounts of what Aucklanders actually think—if we want to talk about Aucklanders—and I think that should be tested in a full way in select committee. On the one hand we have the council saying 50 percent of people are saying they support the regional fuel tax and 40 percent are opposed. Then we have the AA saying that 38 percent of people oppose the regional fuel tax and only 35 percent support it. So you've got the Auckland Council who wants the ability to tax more saying New Zealanders and Aucklanders want it and you've got the AA who actually represents the people that will be paying the tax saying Aucklanders don't actually want it. These are the matters that should be tested thoroughly by a select committee these are the matters that the select committee should have a decent amount of time to consider and these are the matters that Aucklanders should have more than eight days to submit on.I think it's appalling that we are doing this yet again—that the Labour Government is yet again curtailing the ability for New Zealanders to submit on legislation by using their majority to reduce report-back periods. I suggest we should be allowing a select committee to have a full and proper process on this. There's also an important I think principle at stake here where the Minister's saying that this has to go through quickly so a new tax can be put in place by 1 July. But in the bill there is a requirement for the Minister to make an assessment on a proposal put to him by the council. That proposal has to be prepared by the council after the council has outlined projects and consulted. The council has not had the opportunity to do that thoroughly yet because the council does not yet know what the Minister's going to put in place through the Government policy statement.So when you work through this process you've got a Minister saying that this tax is going to be important and must be in place by 1 July. He can only approve that tax after receiving a proposal—a proposal which hasn't even yet been prepared because he hasn't done the initial stages himself by issuing a Government policy statement. He is completely pre-empting a decision that he would have to make based on advice that he should be receiving from a council that is not yet able to give any advice because it is not yet able to formulate that proposal.Hon Phil Twyford: It's all too hard isn't it!JAMI-LEE ROSS: It's not all too hard Mr Twyford. What we have here is Mr Twyford and the Labour Party being assisted by a council who wants to put in place a tax and doesn't want Aucklanders to have a real say on it. I say that the Labour Party should be true to their principles. When he was sitting along these benches he would have been one of the first people up on his feet saying Aucklanders and New Zealanders should have a real say on legislation and we heard that time after time. Let's see them put their money where their mouth is. Let's see them actually vote in line with what they said when they were in Opposition. It is not right to curtail the ability for New Zealanders to submit on this. It is not right to say A new tax is going to be put in place but we're going to take away your rights to a normal parliamentary scrutiny process to submit on that." It is an appalling approach that the Government is proposing to take and this party will be opposing it quite vigorously."