Brown Peter: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Brown Peter: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:623;Page:18692] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 This is a very sad day for New Zealanders. The Government is about to pass legislation that will add 5.6c per litre to our fuel bills. I think today is the day that the Kyoto Protocol will be ratified and I think we can expect a carbon tax to go on our coal-fired power stations which represents— 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Hooray! 
PETER BROWN 
: —listen to the Greens—6 or 7 percent of the power generated in this country and probably from shortly thereafter if not today they will be paying a carbon tax. Mr Howard is coming here very shortly from Australia where I think 76 percent of electricity is generated from coal. He is not going to put on a carbon tax because basically the Australian Government thinks of its people first and foremost. 
I heard Jeanette Fitzsimons say on the radio the other day that this Government has lost its heart. It has—it has lost its heart. It has lost its concern for the average working person and indeed the Greens have coupled themselves alongside it. It is an absolute disgrace to put 5.6c on a litre of petrol. It is unnecessary and I think everybody knows that. I heard the Minister say he wants to do this to keep the economy moving. I will come back to that statement. 
John Key 
: A clanger. 
PETER BROWN 
: Yes it is a clanger an absolute clanger and I will come back to it. But he made another statement. He said that this is the best way to address the issue. I ask any Government member and United Future what alternative they have examined. When the Government says it thinks this is the best way that implies it had some other option. But it has not considered anything at all. The Government is simply saying that it wants more money so it will tax the poor old motorist. 
Gordon Copeland 
: What’s the alternative then? 
PETER BROWN 
: I will answer that. I ask the member to sit there because he might learn something. I will tell the member another thing he should learn and it is that I come from a party that means what it says. We do not go along with the philosophy—and this is a debating point so the member need not raise a point of order—whereby we say we want changes to tax rates and so on but when the Government says it wants confidence and supply we roll over. We are not into that league at all. 
There are many ways of advancing New Zealand and one of the most important ways is to build more roads promptly. The report that the Government should at least read—and Mr Copeland should take note of this—is the Allen report. It identifies four areas of concern in this country. There are only four areas—and I have the report here. Those areas are called the Passing Lanes package the Auckland Western Ring Route package the Tauranga Strategic Roading Network package and the Wellington Regional Land Transport package. The report identifies the benefits and I will read them for the benefit of the Government because I know they are too tired to read this booklet on their own: “The total benefits comprise a net increase in GDP of around $1 billion a benefit of $65.9 million attributable to the value of lives saved and permanent disability and the benefit of $511 million from travel time savings related to non-work activities.” 
It goes on to summarise those benefits: “This implies that for every dollar invested in the proposed packages New Zealand will receive benefits worth approximately $4.75 and these are economic benefits only. For every dollar invested New Zealand will be better off by $4.75.” That varies from package to package but it is the overall average. Further it states: “Regardless of whether the packages are undertaken individually or in aggregate the expected gains tower over the initial investment costs required to finance the proposed infrastructure.” 
This document alone states that we should be borrowing to advance our roading if we cannot afford to do it from the current revenue stream. 
Let us examine the current revenue stream in the National Land Transport Programme for this year. Government members might like to look this up to see that I am not talking fiction. The estimate over the next 10-year period including this tax and the indexation is $18.7 billion. If we take out this tax and take out the indexation we are at around $16 billion. That is a lot of money in anybody’s language. If we look at what the Government takes from the petrol motorist over the same 10-year period it is a further $7 billion. So over a 10-year period we are talking about the Government collecting from the motorist through road-user charges registration petrol tax and everything else something like $23 billion. I suggest to members that if they drive down any street in this country that is occupied they will see a number of buildings and most of those buildings are mortgaged or have been mortgaged. They will see cars or trucks and most of those cars and most of those trucks are either leased or paid for on hire purchase. 
In other words the average New Zealander uses the opportunity to borrow against future income for his or her house building business farm or whatever—and for his or her vehicle. Yet for the roads we stick to this antiquated “pay as you go” philosophy. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I hate to break it to you but the Government has a mortgage too. 
PETER BROWN 
: Mr Prebble will get his time in due course. Basically roading in this country is on a “pay as you go” system and it is old hat. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: What? 
PETER BROWN 
: Mr Prebble obviously has not read the literature available to him. I suggest that he does because this Government spends what it gets and collects next year for the motorists. Last year it underspent by something like $230 million. 
Roads have not kept pace with vehicle traffic and user demand. We know that and we know that that is principally because past Governments have taken from the motorists and used the money here there and everywhere. That is absolutely wrong. National wants to correct the situation. I listened to John Key with considerable interest. National wants to correct the situation by allowing private enterprise into the system. We say that that is not necessary. We say that that is equally wrong. 
There are three things we in this country should be doing. Firstly we should be identifying the specific roading we need for long-term use and getting it absolutely correct. Secondly we should be building those roads on an as-required basis. In other words if we want a bridge that will accommodate 100000 vehicles a day in 10 years’ time we should build it in such a way as to achieve that without adding a great deal to the design and construction costs. Thirdly we should be putting in place a continuous and sustainable funding stream. The only way to do that fairly given what the motorist currently pays is to use the money that is taken from the motorist at present through fuel taxes road-user charges etc. 
If that is not enough—and I suggest that it will not be enough because the system has been robbed blind for so many years and we need to do so much—we will need to get into borrowing mode. I believe that sufficient income will come in to justify that. The gains outlined in the Allen report support our getting on with the job and doing it now. We must move away from the “pay as you go” regime and towards a 21st century type of regime. There is not a person running a business of any size who would finance expansion in the way we finance the expansion of roading in this country. It is a sad day indeed when the Government is sticking to this antiquated thinking and is imposing on the motorist a further increase in fuel taxes—and worse still indexing the whole darn lot to inflation. New Zealand First will be opposing this bill.