Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much Madam Chair for the opportunity—and for looking right through my colleague Tim van de Molen—to take a call on the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Sports) Amendment Bill. I'd like to just start by reflecting a comment—Hon Member: Not Motor Sports"—"Motor Spirits".SIMEON BROWN: —which many—spirits? Well we've talked about motor spirits and motor sports and we've talked about aviation sports and they're all getting pretty much a fail out of this piece of legislation that we're putting through. It's an interesting time here in this Parliament when we've just seen the first wellbeing Budget to be spending our first bill talking about tax—increased taxes and increased taxes on motorists.I'd like to ask the Minister a number of questions in relation to some of the comments that he's made tonight and also then some questions in relation to how this will impact on my electorate of Pakuranga. Firstly the Minister stood up and said in relation to a question which was "Why is this being brought back from 1 October to 1 July and how much is that going to raise additionally?" that it would raise an additional $30 million and that the purpose of that was to synchronise the budgets. Now I'd like to ask the Minister what that synchronisation actually means because on this side of the Chamber what we see is a $30 million increase in taxes on hard-working New Zealanders and another $30 million next year and we do not understand what this synchronisation actually means.I've heard all the members on this side of the Chamber talking about different projects and I'm not going to get into different projects but what other projects is this synchronising for? We have a right to know what this money is actually going towards. Thirty million dollars is a substantial amount of money that taxpayers will be having for fork out for this Government's so-called synchronisation. Or is this something like a reset which the Minister has also recently announced in another portfolio?The second question I'd like to ask relates to my electorate of Pakuranga and that is in relation to where this money will be going to and not in relation to any particular project but the fact is that in my electorate we have been asked by this Government and forced by this Government to continue to pay more and more and more excise tax. In Auckland we're paying the regional fuel tax of 11.5c per litre. Last year we had to pay a 4c increase in our tax on petrol levies and now we're paying another 4c. The question I'd like to ask is: how many more times will this Minister be coming down to the House and forcing people in my electorate to continue to have to pay more petrol tax and still have uncertainty over the projects and what it's going to be delivering in Auckland?This is not an unsubstantial amount of money. This is something that will cost the people of my electorate who work hard pay their taxes and go around Auckland in their cars. The majority of them—90 percent of people in my electorate—have to use their cars to go to work. That's a fact. The Minister can talk about all the things that the Government's trying to do around public transport etc. etc. but 90 percent of the people in my electorate have no other option but to use their cars to go to work. That means they have no other choice but to continue to pay this petrol tax and petrol levy.The Minister might talk about all the different things that are happening in Auckland but the reality in Auckland is that the people in my electorate don't all just go into the city. They travel all across Auckland to go to their place of employment. The CBD is one of the places they go to for their place of employment but there are many other places where we do not have the public transport options or other options; so the only option that people in my electorate have is to pay this additional petrol tax. The question I ask is: how many more times are we going to have to continue to pay additional excise levies when we fill up our cars in order for this Minister to continue to try and fulfil the promises? If we're going to see more synchronisations and more resets and all of the rest how many more petrol taxes is this Minister and this Government going to force on motorists in Auckland?"