Brown Peter: Land Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
Brown Peter: Land Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9737] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I welcome this second call this afternoon to clarify New Zealand First’s views on funding road transport. First and foremost we are advocates of using the 18.5c petrol tax that goes into the Crown account. If that is not justified or fair and if there is a genuine reason that all of it or some of it should go into the Crown account we would live with that if we could see a report that supported that assertion. Then we would look reasonably favourably at a regional fuel tax. It is important that we address the roading problems in this country. We hear that over $1 billion a year is lost to the commercial community in Auckland. I think the new leader of the National Party said that congestion in Auckland costs $1.4 billion a year. We say that the congestion problem is long past being reasonable. 
We do not support tolling across the board. We would support road tolling on an individual basis exactly as we have now where the legislation comes before the House and a case is put for a particular road to be tolled and only that road. It is not to go on to other roads etc. That is the case with Route K in Tauranga. We do not believe that the public-private partnership scenario in this bill will work. Larry Baldock asked yesterday as I recall why we are voting against this legislation if we do not believe it will work. Well in short it will not work because it is not flexible enough. It will not work because the risks are too high. It will not work because the profit is too low or is likely to be. 
But all that can be changed with a stroke of a pen and then the average New Zealander could be faced with road tolls here there and everywhere. We say “No” to that. We say that for every dollar that goes into a toll plaza firstly in part it has to pay for the physical cost of that plaza; secondly it has to pay for the manning of the plaza; thirdly it has to pay for the administration of the roading scheme; fourthly it has to pay the debt that the private investor has incurred by borrowing money to fund the plaza; and finally it has to pay for the profit—no profit no investment. Maurice Williamson alluded to no profit no investment; he not only alluded to it he stated it in very very firm terms and I agree with him wholeheartedly. If there is no profit investors cannot see money coming back to them and they will not invest in the scheme. Virtually every dollar that goes through a regional petrol tax or fuel tax goes directly into roading. The best part of half the dollars that go through toll structures I suggest would be lost. The best part of half goes into administration capital costs and what have you but every cent in every dollar that goes through the fuel tax system will go into roading. 
If Transfund had the ability from the Minister to borrow it could borrow sufficient money at reasonable terms to address the roading needs of this country in a relatively short time frame. We would pay it back through our petrol tax. As I say if a petrol tax of 18.5c going into the consolidated account can be justified and we have real doubts about it then we would be prepared to support a regional fuel tax. I say “regional fuel tax” because we seek to have it imposed on more than just the petrol motorist. It would be collected through a fuel tax on the petrol motorist and—