Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. The previous speaker Phil Twyford has accused us of a lack of integrity in the way that we govern tax and spend and he says we're just a spending party not a taxing one. Well the previous National Government took us from massive deficits during the time of the Canterbury earthquakes and global financial crisis back to surpluses to provide the surpluses which this Government gleefully spends around the country. He says that where this party—Greg O'Connor: You inherited surpluses.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Oh my goodness. I suggest that member look over his history and you'll find that—SPEAKER: Order! Both sides now. There are going to be many many more hours of Budget debate and that will occur and this is the sort of debate that can happen there. I've just asked Mr O'Connor to stop trying to get this man to deviate from what should be appropriate.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you Mr Speaker. I will not deviate from a complete focus on this bill which is an introduction of higher fuel taxes. What this represents is a sneaky tax grab on the motorists of New Zealand. Only a year ago they came to the country and said Yes we're going to put up fuel taxes. We're going to put them up 3.5c a litre every year for three years making it 10.5c plus GST"—don't forget: plus the GST so that's another 1.5c or whatever so 12 or 13c—"and we're going to do that over three years. It's going to come in on 30 September each year"—woompha woompha woompha—"and everybody is going to pay this big tax and it's going to hurt but you're going to like it or lump it." Now what do we find—now what do we find? A sneaky little tax grab. They don't bring it out on 30 September; they bring it out on 1 July—so another sneaky little three months of taxes that they're adding to the pile just to gather a bit more money. We'll be waiting for the committee stage to have the opportunity to ask the officials exactly how many more millions of dollars they will be sneakily bringing into their coffers as a result of this tax or excise revenue.The Minister thought he might be able to get it passed but he didn't. It's a reason why New Zealanders will never trust the Labour Party on taxes because they always say that they'll try and be disciplined but when it comes to reality they aren't. This excise duty's expansion of motor spirits levies and taxes is affecting the petrol pump and the diesel pump that people encounter on a regular basis and paying more for it is going to be noticed by all New Zealanders and lamented greatly.Now you cannot talk—you cannot talk—about an increase in excise levies without referring to where that money is going to go to. This bill is about taking money in and we need to know what we're spending it on. That is why we are opposed to this bill—on a number of counts. The primary count is that it's a sneaky little tax grab bringing it forward an extra three months but secondly because we are not at all impressed by how the Government is choosing to spend this extra excise money.The way that we can work out how they are planning to spend it is through the Government policy statement on transport and that guides the workings of the National Land Transport Fund which is dealt with by the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA). All these things are relevant. The chaos and dysfunction in NZTA for example where they're losing staff at a great rate of knots—they lost a chairman within a year of him coming in and the whole board has been turned over so none of the local mayors can get anybody on the telephone in order to talk about their local projects—that is relevant to this bill because we're raising the money for that fund to be administered by NZTA and we're not getting much for it.Then we've moved away from spending the money collected by this excise tax to reduce congestion on our roads to give relief to the frustrated motorists of this country who are wasting their lives away in congestion and are looking for solutions. This Government has decided not to spend the money on reducing congestion but rather to focus entirely on mode shift—that is getting people out of their cars and on to scooters and walking and cycling and everything else apart from using their car which is quite appropriate in some circumstances but doesn't meet the circumstances of everybody's needs and requirements. If you're trying to pick up your daughter from netball practice on the way home from school in the dark and the rain in Auckland then you probably would prefer to have a car to do that. That's one of the relatively simple things about having a good quality of life in this beautiful country that we all enjoy.The people who are paying this excise tax at the pump whether it's diesel or petrol want to know that they're getting some progress on it and they want to know that if they live in a city or in parts of New Zealand where there is rapid population growth such as there has been over the last few years because we had a successful economy and a successful country and people wanted to come and live here—not so much recently as we've seen in changes to the flow and I won't digress on that matter. So you've got rapidly growing population and we need to invest in infrastructure to keep the transport modes operating. That's why you need to have a balanced approach to transport investment. So when we see this fund when we pay our taxes we want to know that there is a balanced approach and we're not seeing that from this Government I'm afraid and on that basis we're not very happy with it.This was previously announced—I was just going back over the initial press statements from last year when this Minister Mr Twyford announced these excise increases: 3.5c last year another one this year and another one next year. It was going to be on 30 September. Now he's moved it forward to 1 July and has brought about a sneaky tax grab on the motorists of New Zealand. It amazes me that they think this is the first piece of legislation to celebrate post-Budget.The only other question that I have—and I'd be interested during the course of the committee stage to sort of delve into this—is that a big part of this money that's being collected from the motorists is going to be spent according to the Minister's wishes on a slow tram down Dominion Road. When we asked what is the purpose of the slow tram—it's not about going to the airport as the Minister always talks about because it's never going to the airport; it's only going to Māngere. The purpose that was explained to me by the chair of NZTA was urban regeneration—urban regeneration. So what I find intriguing is why motorists should be paying excise levies—SPEAKER: Order! I was so enthralled that I missed the fact that the member got 10 seconds extra. It's dinner time. The House is adjourned until 7.30. The debate will resume then.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you Mr Speaker. I was telling the nation that this bill here the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill was a sneaky tax grab on the motorists of New Zealand. A lot of people tonight will be asking "What's in this Budget for me?" Well I can tell you what's in this Budget for you: it's more petrol taxes. We were promised that we would be paying more petrol taxes last year starting from 30 September each year but this Government in this bill have advanced that by three months on each of the two years an extra—we're trying to work out exactly how many more millions of excise that will represent. We think it's about $60 million—an extra $60 million. So they've snuck in an extra $60 million at least and we'll ask the officials at the committee stage—$60 million worth of extra taxes on top of the extra taxes that they were already bringing in and that's why the people of New Zealand can't trust this Government on taxation.I was also talking about that broad question: where does all this money that they're taking out of the pockets of the motorists—where does it go? One of the biggest places that it goes—is supposed to be going—is into building the slow tram down Dominion Road. The primary objective of that slow tram as has been explained to me by the chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency was urban regeneration. So the question is well how on earth is urban regeneration an appropriate thing to be spending fuel taxes on? Fuel taxes are supposed to be hypothecated to building transport infrastructure—whether it's roads or rail or public transport—in order to enable Kiwis to get around and do the things that they want to do. We've all got places to go and we all need to get on with it and we don't like being tied up in congestion. We do need to accept that the population is growing; therefore we need to invest in expanding infrastructure and when all the money that's been collected in these fuel taxes is siphoned off—siphoned off—to urban regeneration plans whatever that means then we have less focus on reducing the congestion and building the transport infrastructure that we need in this country. That is why we oppose this bill."