Twyford PhilHon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Thank you Mr Chairman. We're hearing a lot of repetition from the Opposition benches but in the remaining moments of this debate there's a few extra points that I think deserve a response. Nikki Kaye's rhetorical points from the St Cuthbert's high school debating society—the claim I think that—Hon Nikki Kaye: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I'd just like the Minister to clarify that. Why is he associating me with a particular school?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Did I get the school wrong?CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): OK let's all calm down. A couple of things. Just to the Minister the Chair is the sole judge on relevancy and on when I'm going to accept a closure motion. The other issue is that members should refer to other members by their correct title and name and if we want to have a good debate that should be referred to.Hon PHIL TWYFORD: So the rhetorical claim from the member Nikki Kaye that this is a broken promise in terms of no new taxes we campaigned—Labour campaigned—on the regional fuel tax. We are keeping our promise. We are keeping our promise by bringing this bill to the House. I'll tell you the other promise we're keeping: we are going to fix Auckland's transport problems—something that the National Government had nine years to do and presided over a steady decline.So I want to come back to Nikki Kaye's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 27 to exclude Great Barrier Island and Waiheke Island. We are not going to support that SOP and the reason is this: we've already heard from Auckland Council their proposal—actually within the terms of this bill—to align the benefits of the people who are going to get the benefit of this bill with the people who are going to contribute through the regional fuel tax and Auckland Council proposes to exclude the people of Great Barrier Island.They do not propose to exclude the people of Waiheke Island and the reason is this: a significant number of people from Waiheke Island travel to the city with some regularity and not only do they use the ferry service—including the ferry terminal that will be upgraded and expanded with funding generated through the regional fuel tax—but when they commute to Auckland City they use the transport system in Auckland City. So we're not proposing to support Nikki Kaye's SOP on this point and we think it's much better in fact to have a system where basically the council makes its own decision on the geographical scope of any exclusion not one that's done through the primary legislation which would be a blunt instrument.A number of members from the Opposition side have argued that road pricing would be a better way to raise revenue than a regional fuel tax. We agree. We agree with that point. We agree with Sam Warburton when he makes that argument. But actually all of the informed analysis is that a serious system of road pricing in Auckland such as variable price tolling on the motorway network and congestion charging is a number of years away—at least six or seven or eight years away or possibly even a decade.Now road pricing will actually offer us significant benefits in terms of demand management and it's also potentially a source of revenue to make further investments in the transport system and those are powerful reasons why we need road pricing. The work is under way—in fact it started under the Hon Simon Bridges when he was the transport Minister. We're continuing it but it's not ready yet and we are not prepared to sit around and wait for six seven years or even a decade while that work on road pricing reaches its conclusion.We have to make serious investments now in Auckland's transport system and the fact that none of the Opposition members have acknowledged today is that it is only fair for Aucklanders to pay a little bit of extra for the investment that's needed to get ahead of very high rates of growth in Auckland. Unless we have something like the regional fuel tax people all around regional New Zealand—in Palmerston North and Balclutha; you name it—will end up paying the full costs of Auckland's growth and that's not fair to them. So while the National Party are going around the country like Johnny Appleseed promising new expressway projects and then they come to this House and promise to repeal the regional fuel tax they have to answer the question: how are they going to pay for the transport projects that they've promised? They're asking regional New Zealand to pay more for Auckland's transport needs and yet they claim to be the great defenders of regional New Zealand.I also want to reply to the point that's been made on several occasions so far—the idea that Auckland Council should be asked to tighten its belt to cut costs and that if Auckland Council were to do that then somehow this regional fuel tax wouldn't be needed. Well the folly of that argument is so easily exposed by the fact that the increase in Auckland Council's administration expenditure is approximately 2 percent per year over the last decade. The increase in capital expenditure for infrastructure principally transport infrastructure has increased by an average of 7 percent per year over the last decade. The increase in Auckland Council's spending is because they're spending more on transport infrastructure. The National Party want Auckland Council to cut spending on transport so they can spend more on transport. It is an absolutely absurd argument and if the members on the Opposition benches stopped for a moment and thought about it they would stop making that argument.Will it spread to other regions? This is the other bit of kind of scaremongering that we've seen—that the regional fuel tax that this bill requires can only be used to allow Auckland Council to put in place a regional fuel tax between now and January 2021. The fear is that this will somehow spread like a virus to other parts of New Zealand. Well how lacking in trust the National Party are for communities all around this country. How lacking in faith they are in the democratic process because they don't want communities around New Zealand to have the choice to say We want to invest extra in our region for reasons of economic development to give our people access to the things that they need like employment and education." to make up for the years of drift and neglect under the former National Government. They don't trust the people of New Zealand the communities or the democratically elected representatives so they don't want people to have the opportunity to opt for a bit of extra revenue so that they can exercise some local autonomy in their communities. That is how little faith the National Party has in local communities around this country."