Twyford PhilHon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): There have been some very curious contributions from the Opposition benches but in the spirit of this committee stage let me respond to one or two of them. Parmjeet Parmar would like taxation to be a voluntary thing an optional thing. While I embrace the importance of the spirit of voluntarism in our society frankly I'm surprised that the National Party wants to make the payment of taxes an optional thing—but there we go.Stuart Smith proposes that a cost-benefit analysis be required for every regional council reporting on the expenditure of the funds raised by a regional fuel tax. I say to Mr Smith that every significant piece of transport expenditure is subjected to a cost-benefit analysis of some kind. In fact in line with our Government policy statement our Government is getting under way with a complete revamp of the entire system of measuring the economic value of transport projects.Scott Simpson had a very unusual proposal: basically requiring councils to have a referendum before a regional fuel tax could be put in place. This is a very odd suggestion because councils can raise their budgets and raise rates to support those budgets any year that they like. They don't have to have a referendum to do that but they have to go through the requirements of the Local Government Act as Lawrence Yule well knows—the onerous consultation requirements of the Local Government Act—and they have to explain to their citizens they have to put a proposal in front of them they have to basically invite public submissions and then they have to report back to their ratepayers and tell them exactly what they're going to do. But nowhere in the whole system of local government are councils required to hold a referendum to get the agreement from their citizens for the raising of additional revenue so this would be a very very unusual inconsistency in the system of local government.Matt King proposes an amendment to the Search and Surveillance Act because Mr King apparently believes that it's OK to defraud a system of taxation for a month but you have to have been defrauding the system for 12 months before you can be subject to the enforcement provisions in this bill. I thought that after nine years in this Parliament I knew the National Party; clearly I don't.Finally let me respond to Jami-Lee Ross' contribution in this debate. He wants to amend the Social Security Act to allow a reimbursement of any expenditure on a regional fuel tax—an equivalent amount to be refunded through the social security system. I say to Mr Ross where was this concern for low-income families facing regressive taxes? Where was this heartfelt concern when the former National Government raised the goods and services tax having promised—Matt King: Yeah but it was tax-neutral—it was tax-neutral.Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well they say it was tax-neutral but actually it took money out of the pockets of working New Zealanders and gave it to people at the top end. It was not tax-neutral for working New Zealanders. In fact it was very tax-negative for the big end of town that the National Party has the habit of looking after.So I also say to Jami-Lee Ross if he's so concerned about regressive taxes where was this concern when the former National Government raised the petrol excise duty and road-user charges by 17c plus GST—17c plus GST—six times in nine years? Now the last time I checked the petrol excise was a regressive tax but I don't recall hearing a single speech in this House—[Time expired]