Baldock Larry: Budget Debate 
Baldock Larry: Budget Debate 
[Volume:608;Page:5976] 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 Most members in this House will know that ever since I arrived here I have been asking the Government to explain why all the revenue raised from petrol excise taxes is not spent on transport-related expenditure. The answer I have normally been given is that the Government could not afford to that it would have to raise new revenue somehow to recover what was taken from the consolidated account and put back into the National Land Transport Fund or it would have to cut expenses in some other area. The Government frequently asks: “What hospitals or what schools will we close?” If the members of this House cannot recall my frequent questions in this regard I am sure that those who most certainly do recall them are the 900000 members of the Automobile Association  Federated Farmers members of the Road Transport Forum Local Government New Zealand—which year after year must extract more rates from property owners to pay for local roads—and Business New Zealand and the residents of Auckland Wellington and Tauranga who are facing increasing congestion on their streets every year. 
This raiding of the petrol excise taxes began in the 1970s when Government began to spend less on roads than it was collecting. The situation was worse during the 1980s when income was 211 percent of expenditure rising to a peak of 283 percent by 1990. By the year 2000 it had reduced to 165 percent but rose again to 174 percent in 2002. Now in this Budget it is projected to rise to 182 percent. In fact I was told that during the stormy years of the National - New Zealand First coalition when New Zealand First to its credit was trying to get greater transparency over this expenditure the Minister of Finance Bill Birch threatened to resign if any more of his precious cash cow was touched. That is the way Ministers of Finance refer to this funding. 
The most common response of former Governments both National and Labour when asked why more of the petrol excise tax money is not spent on the roads we so desperately need—roads that could save lives and reduce injuries and therefore save health and accident compensation costs—is to answer with questions: “What schools would you like to close? What hospitals would you close? What surgeries will you cancel? What taxes would you raise?” But in this Budget the Government announces new expenditure on health and education and a whole raft of other new spending without closing hospitals or schools or raising new taxes. The Government is able to do that because of a surplus and it chooses what to allocate that extra revenue to without cutting some other department’s expenditure at all—except perhaps the $13 million cut ironically from Transfund in this Budget. 
My point is that this new spending announced in the Budget is possible only because of the planned plundering of the National Land Transport Fund next year to the tune of $452 million of fuel excise taxes which will be diverted to the consolidated account or $867 million if we simply take the excess of revenue from the petrol excise and road-user charges which totals $1.579 billion over Transfund’s budget of $867 million. The much-acclaimed surplus then is not really as large as it appears to be and it has been bolstered only by the excess of revenue collected from the motorists of this country over the amount spent by Transfund. 
That begs the question of who really is paying for this new spending. That answer is simple: the New Zealand motorist is. Motorists are paying for the new health and education initiatives as they have paid for them year after year under successive Governments. Previous Governments have raided the National Land Transport Fund to meet those other areas. 
We do not expect this situation to be corrected overnight. It has happened over the course of 20 to 30 years and it will take more than a few years to correct it. But now the results of robbing Peter to pay Paul have come home to roost with this Government—or should I say the robbing of Paul to pay Trevor or the robbing of Paul to pay Annette? What worries me is whether Paul will be robbed again next year to pay Steve. We ask this Government to break with the old bad habits of the 1980s and 1990s and commit in next year’s Budget to replace over time the money it has raided from the National Land Transport Fund. I know that the Minister is aware of the problem and I trust it will be dealt with.