Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I know I look quite similar and I'm very fresh and new just like Chris Penk.Hon Judith Collins: And very talented and hard-working.SIMEON BROWN: And equally hard-working like the good member Christopher Penk who's working hard in Helensville whereas I'm the good member for Pakuranga and I'm pleased to be able to stand here and represent the interests of the motorists in my electorate who will be punished by this tax—realising there should be no taxation without representation and that's a message I will continue to advocate for during my time in the House. I have just tabled a new amendment which seeks to address a point raised by the Hon Phil Twyford when he disagreed with the amendment in the name of Chris Penk which says that there would be reporting of all regional fuel tax schemes to be received by each local board in the region in consultation undertaken with that local board prior to the consultation on the annual report.Now the Minister took a call and I was very pleased that he took a call because I think this is a very worthy amendment and makes a lot of sense. It empowers local boards and has all of the reasons that I gave beforehand. But he made a very good point. He said that there are community boards as well and other territorial local authorities and of course local boards are really only in Auckland which of course is a unitary authority under the Local Government Act and local boards were given to ensure that local communities had a strong voice in Auckland and in its decision-making power. So of course community boards should also be added but the point in this which I think got missed by Mr Twyford was that of course this tax is only meant to be for Auckland. So when Mr Penk put together this amendment a very good amendment he was thinking This is a Government which will keep its promises. This is a Government which is only going to be putting a regional fuel tax in for Auckland because that's what they campaigned for—so therefore you'd only need reporting for Auckland and therefore the legislation should only need to cover local boards."But of course we know that this doesn't just allow regional fuel taxes for Auckland; this allows regional fuel taxes across New Zealand after 2021. And what do we call that? A broken promise. But it also means that this legislation needs to reflect what the Government's true intent is. So I would like to take a moment to again explain why this is important—and it is important and not just for local boards. If these regional fuel taxes are going to be put across all of New Zealand—and we know there's about a dozen councils which have put their hands up and said "Please tax us." or "Please tax our motorists and our residents and ratepayers who already pay a huge amount of money."—"Please tax us." Well there are community boards there which also deserve to be part of the local government decision-making process. They deserve to have their voice heard. They deserve to have that consultation prior to the annual report and again that word "prior" was included in my amendment because it's important that our local boards and our community boards are not continued to be trampled over by this Government and by the senior leadership in that council and then just left there to deal with the pieces at the end of the day.So the amendment says that it should be done prior. They should be part of the process before the annual report is produced so they know that the money which has been taken off the people who vote for them the people that they represent is going into projects in their area and so they know what the progress of those proposals is how it's going whether the construction is on time whether it's being delivered as it was said it was going to be delivered by the plan whether there's been a delay why the delay is happening and what the reason for it might be so they can feed into that annual report.Because we all know that projects take time and often we see projects being delayed for a variety of reasons. Most of them I would say there are reasons why they happen but local boards and community boards need to be part of that conversation. So I hope now that I've clarified the Minister's concerns over that amendment in the name of Christopher Penk and I hope that he will support my amendment in the name of Simeon Brown and that he will vote for it and support it so that all communities can have their say and be included. Thank you very much Madam Chair."