Volume 690 Week 42 - Thursday 16 May 2013(continued on Saturday 18 May 2013)Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 690 Week 42 - Thursday 16 May 2013(continued on Saturday 18 May 2013)[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10277. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Thursday 16 May 2013(continued on Saturday 18 May 2013)Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment BillIn CommitteeDebate resumed.Clauses 1 to 3(continued)Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): Good morning to the Committee on this Thursday 16 May. I am interested to see that we have a different Minister in the chair this morning the Minister for Primary Industries. Perhaps the Minister responsible for this Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill Simon Bridges has gone home to the Bay of Plenty to take care of really important issues. Clearly there are important things going on in the Bay of Plenty as you can tell from—Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s out of order.Hon MARYAN STREET: Well get up and raise a point of order. Raise a point of order. There are obviously important things going on in the Bay of Plenty. One of the top stories in theBay of Plenty Times this morning was the fact that a woman was fined $150 for driving through a red light while flossing her teeth. Perhaps the Minister of Energy and Resources has gone to take care of that.We are talking about clauses 1 to 3 of the bill which include the title and the commencement clauses. Last night when I was interrupted by midnight I was talking about the fact that the Minister needs to be careful about the implementation date of this bill. If he is not careful—if he does not give it to a competent staffer in other words—he could have the amendment coming into effect before the bill that it amends comes into effect. So the date of implementation of this bill is to be the day after the Royal assent and if he is not careful and does not look after it and if he does not have somebody with a little yellow sticky label to bring it up for him on 25 May he could find himself in an even more bizarre situation than he currently is.Part of the debate this morning is about the title of the bill. We could call this the “My First Effort (Epic Fail) Bill” because this has been a chapter of errors from the beginning and it is the Minister’s first attempt to bring legislation to the House. So within 6 weeks even before the Crown Minerals Amendment Act which we passed a few weeks ago has been implemented we are here amending it.We could call it the “Nobody Told Me I Had to Earn My Salary Bill” because the level of incompetence around this procedure has been extraordinary. We could call it the “Contempt for Democracy Bill” because it does not allow in this rushed process any due consideration by a select committee. We could call it the “Contempt for Parliament Bill” because the disdain with which the Minister has held Parliament is of epic proportions. We could call it the “Contempt for Due Process Bill” because it has in fact denied people who know more than the Minister—that is not hard—about maritime and international law for example the chance to submit on it. It could be called the “New Levels of Ministerial Incompetence Bill” because of the ineptitude demonstrated from beginning to end.But probably National members would like to call it the “How to Lose Friends and Aggravate People Bill” because they are not keen to be here on a Saturday morning even if the Minister should really go back to watching out for women drivers who drive through red lights while flossing their teeth. It could be called the “Strip New Zealanders of Their Right to Protest Bill”. It could be called—ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): The title and commencement are two very important aspects of the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill. My colleague Maryan Street was talking about the commencement issue and there is a real issue about the potential for this bill to come into force to amend another bill that will not yet have entered into force as an Act. So it will create this dreadful situation where the original Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 is waiting in the queue to come into force on 24 May or 25 May and this bill gets signed off this weekend goes off to the Governor-General for the Royal assent and is in effect in force but amending nothing. That just demonstrates the horrific position that the House has been put in with rushed legislation without any sense of the issue having been properly managed. That is an issue.The title of the bill is very concerning because when the bill is passed it will then be known as the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Act 2013. I think we need to be more clever about how to abbreviate that. We could call it the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Squared” because we have both the word “Amendment” and the year “2013” together.Hon Maryan Street: This is not a typo.ANDREW LITTLE: It could have in brackets “(This is Not a Typographical Error)”. It could be called the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 (Times Two) Amendment Bill” or the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 (Mark II) Amendment Bill”. We could of course call it the “Crown Minerals (Barbarised Information) Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill” because if there is one thing that has characterised the debate on this bill as indeed characterised the last one this House considered it is the total lack of regulatory impact information that we have had. That is another unfortunate position that this House has yet again been put into which we should not be put into. In this particular bill as we know there was a very important issue—a genuine doubt over the efficacy of one of the provisions in it clause 14. So it might be appropriate to reflect that in the title of the bill.Alternatively to reflect another deep-seated concern about this bill it might be called the “Crown Minerals (Not Taking Health and Safety or the Environment Seriously) Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill”. That goes to the heart of the issue that we have in this piece of legislation. It is already a pretty light-handed approach to health and safety oversight and environmental oversight when it comes to prospecting and the exploration of oil and gas and this makes it even lighter. It underscores the very deep-seated concern we have that it simply does not take that issue seriously at a time in this country’s history when workplace health and safety in particular is at the forefront of everybody’s minds. We have a disastrous record when it comes to that and this industry as much as it has come a long way in the last 20 or 30 years still has issues about health and safety. In a former capacity I have represented the families of workers at coroners’ inquests in relation to deaths that have been caused in this industry because of issues largely about fatigue and the organisation of work.So when the bill says that the Minister needs to provide some sort of oversight in this day and age we should be expecting the best possible oversight and insistence that the Minister demands world’s best practice in health and safety and world’s best practice in environmental standards. But this bill does not do that. So inserting in brackets within the title “(Not Taking Health and Safety or the Environment Seriously)” would be an apposite reflection of what in fact this bill does—or more accurately what it does not do.Another title might be the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 (Denial of Democracy in Parliament) Amendment Bill” because that is also what we have had. Yet again another piece of legislation is being rushed through the House under urgencywhen actually taking a bit of time to consider it would not have caused any harm or damage to those who have an immediate stake in it. Those are issues that ought to be given very close and serious consideration in both the title and the commencement of this bill.EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Colleagues have suggested a number of other titles for the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill. I think it should be called the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act (Ignore International Conventions particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) Bill”.Here is a very interesting parallel with another piece of legislation that the House has passed the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. On that bill we had a similar debate about insufficient account being taken of our responsibilities under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and there it was about preserving and protecting the marine environment. Certainly there are a number of matters in the exclusive economic zone Act that decision makers such as the Environmental Protection Authority have to take into account and they include the protection of biological diversity but that has got to be balanced off against economic benefits to New Zealand. Of course these two pieces of legislation are parallel because the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill which we are debating today is all about the allocation of block offers and space whereas the exclusive economic zone Act is all about the applications for marine consents to actually do the extraction.It is interesting that in both of them we have had this major issue with the Government failing to take account of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Here in this bill that is because of clause 14 the extension of the no-protest clause which the Minister introduced with his late Supplementary Order Paper into the principal Act. It is interesting that the Australian legislation has no equivalent. Certainly there is a 500-metre safety zone around an oil installation—a well—but there is no provision of any safety zone around a vessel and there is a very good reason for that which is that the convention does not allow for safety zones around vessels. That is in complete contrast to the provisions around oil rigs where those are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of States. But as Duncan Currie noted in his opinion on the Supplementary Order Paper to the principal Act if you have safety zones around vessels that creates very confusing zones of coastal State jurisdiction around foreign-flag vessels.So this Government in this bill is overriding the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and it shows the contempt with which the Government views international conventions. It is potentially passing legislation that it has no jurisdiction to do yet this bill is being pushed through the House and we have not had the benefit of the Law Society or of other submitters who could provide their informed opinion on the impacts of the bill.So I think the bill should be called the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 (Take No Notice of the International Conventions like the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) Amendment Bill”. That is quite a distressing step because it is showing that New Zealand is risking being a pariah on the international stage that the Government thinks it can pass legislation that applies on the high seas and that it thinks it can ignore conventions that have been carefully negotiated taking into account all of the interests of the parties. And why? To suppress the right to protest. That is despite the International Maritime Organization and others and a whole raft of international treaties recognising the right to freedom of association the right to protest at sea and despite the tradition that we have in this country of taking to sea to express our wish to protect our oceans against the dumping of waste against drift-netting and againstnuclear testing. This bill is overriding that by extending the provisions in the principal Act to make it an offence to be within 500 metres of an oil exploration vessel and to impose the potentially quite stiff penalties of imprisonment and very severe fines.Because it goes in breach of international law this bill is a bad bill. It is undermining New Zealand’s reputation as well as our protection of our oceans.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I moveThat the question be now put.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): It is a pleasure to be able to take my first call on the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill. I am particularly interested in the commencement clause of this legislation because we are in—I do not know whether it is a unique situation but it is certainly an extremely rare situation to be debating an amendment bill that amends an amendment Act that has not yet come into force. Obviously there are questions about exactly how the commencement arrangements for this bill should work. As some of us are inclined to do I delved intoMcGee to see whether there were any precedents for this situation and I could not find anything. In the little time I had to have a look through it I could not find anything which suggests to me that it is an extremely rare situation for a Minister to get it so badly wrong the first time around that we find ourselves back here amending an Act that has not even been implemented yet.There are a couple of issues that I think are worth having a look at. Yesterday we traversed the issue of a precise commencement date for the bill that we were debating and the need for a bill to have a precise commencement date in it. You ruled Mr Chairperson that say for instance taking it to a select committee was not precise enough to establish exactly what the commencement date would be for a bill. That leaves us in an interesting situation here where this bill as most bills do says that it commences on the day after it receives Royal assent. But exactly when should a bill that is amending an Act that has not yet come into force receive Royal assent? I think that is a fair question. That seems to me to be quite undetermined. It might be possible that the commencement date set out in this bill is out of order. I think it is difficult to determine exactly what the commencement date for this bill ought to be because we are in this highly unusual situation where the principal Act—and I have no doubt that there will be plenty of calls on the principal Act clause—has not actually yet come into force. So I would be interested in your ruling on that Mr Chairperson.Of course there is one possible option and that is for the Governor-General to refuse to give Royal assent. That is an option that has never been used. It would be absolutely unprecedented for the Governor-General to refuse to give Royal assent but it could be an option if the Governor-General looked at what the Government was doing and thought to himself: “Look you’ve got this a bit out of order here. You need to have the principal Act actually in force before you can amend that Act.” Then it would be an option for the Governor-General to consider refusing to give Royal assent. It would be asMcGee says “a remarkable—indeed a unique—event in New Zealand. No bill presented to a Governor or a Governor-General has ever been refused the Royal assent in New Zealand ...”. I wonder whether Simon Bridges’ stuff-up is really the time to be creating precedent in New Zealand. If a Minister who is so inept and so incapable of getting something as simple as this legislation right has made such a huge mistake is that the time for the Governor-General to step in and do something that has never been done before in New Zealand? Maybe it is. I think it probably is not but I think we have ourselves a very difficult situation here where we have no precedent around how you deal with the commencement of a bill that amends an Act that has not yet come into force.We are also debating the title of the bill. Again this title does not tell us very much. It tells us that it is the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill.It tells us something—Moana Mackey: You couldn’t make that name up.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: You could not make that name up no. It does tell us something. It tells us that this is a highly unusual situation and that Simon Bridges is an incompetent Minister. But I think that you know we really should have in the bill there the fact that as it says in the general policy statement some areas and omissions in the original Act have been identified. So it should be called the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 (Simon Bridges’ Eight Errors and Omissions) Amendment Bill”. I think that that would be a title that much more closely reflects what it is that Parliament is having to do here which is essentially to walk around behind Simon Bridges and clean up his messes before the original Act which he passed through Parliament can even come into force.Of course what we know is that this is a bizarre extension of the anti-protesting regulations in international waters. I think there are numerous titles for this bill that could be considered—Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Generally when we get to this stage of a Committee debate when we are talking about the title and the commencement and the principal Act it is a very narrow debate and it is generally a bit of a laugh. There is a bit of humour at some of the alternative titles that might be given to particular bill. I have heard a bit of that this morning. Some people have referred to this bill the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill perhaps more appropriately being called the “Total Disregard for Health Safety and the Environment Bill” and that certainly is a very valid description. Some people have referred to it as the “Minister’s First Bill (Biggest Mistake in Parliament) Bill”. That is certainly an appropriate title. Others in the debate last evening referred to the possibility of it being called the “Who Came Knocking at the Minister’s Door Bill” given that it is a huge puzzle to us not only why we are debating this bill at 9.20 on a Saturday morning even though the calendar on the wall tells us it is Thursday night but what the need is for this bill to have gone through all stages under urgency.Well the title does not give us any hint to that at all as it is except it is a very puzzling title. “The Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Act 2013.”—it looks like someone got their finger stuck on a button on the computer and just did a repeat in error or did a cut and paste but it is not. If only that were the case.This bill that we are debating now amends an Act that is yet to come into force. Like my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway I looked throughMcGee to see whether there was any precedent for this. I had perhaps less time than he had—he had thought of the idea a lot earlier than I did—but I cannot find anything in the history of our Parliament that has an amendment to an Act coming into this Parliament and being debated before the primary Act has even been brought into force. It is absolutely unheard of.If it was a genuine technical mistake or if it was a genuine error then I think we might be a bit more lenient on the Minister Simon Bridges but actually what he has done is chosen in my view to abuse the parliamentary process. He has not reflected it in the title and not reflected it in the commencement date of this legislation. He has abused the process of this Parliament because not only is he doing a couple of small technical amendments that may well have been needed and may have been agreed to by all members of the House but also he has chosen to do wholesale changes to the primary legislation.This brings him into a very difficult situation. It is specifically reflected in the commencement of the bill clause 2: “This Act comes into force on the day after thedate on which it receives the Royal assent.” Well generally the Royal assent is straight after the bill has gone through the third reading. It gets shipped out through the appropriate processes and gets signed off—gets the Royal assent. Well what happens if the Royal assent on the amending legislation occurs—and therefore this bill that we are debating now comes into force—before the primary legislation comes into force? What position does that put Parliament in?Of course people will say: “Oh well it may be just a matter of a few days.” but actually in a matter of the law and in a matter of big issues like health and safety responsibilities like environmental considerations and responsibilities or like financial liability if there is a major spill—if there is some disaster that is impacted on by this Crown minerals Act—where would the liability lie? I think we would have a huge legal debate. I think this bill could be called the “Crown Minerals (Let’s Get Every International Lawyer Excited) Bill” because this leaves itself wide open to some sort of challenge.This is the area where we should be working in exactly the opposite direction. We should be giving security to the industry—that is clear. We should be making sure that the highest possible health and safety and environmental regimes are in place. This works in the opposite direction. We discussed last night in an earlier discussion about how the permit applicant does not even have to be able to prove that they have the health and safety environmental or financial ability to deal with the requirements of the legislation. This is bizarre.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): I moveThat the question be now put.CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): This bill the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill has as others have said been a highly questionable bill and I want to touch on all three of clauses 1 2 and 3 in my contribution now. First of all I want to look at clause 3 and the amendments to the principal Act because part of the reason we are here is to fix up a whole lot of mistakes that were made in the original bill when it was forced through. As others have so eloquently outlined to the Committee we are in a very odd situation of having to amend a bill that has not yet come into effect which is a very strange situation. But I just thought it was worth putting on the record what those mistakes are—what we are amending in clause 3.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No we’re talking about the title.CAROL BEAUMONT: Clause 3 is about amending the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013. We are talking about clauses 1 to 3. The mistakes made in the original bill relate to the definition of “underground gas storage facility”; references to “reserves” being changed to “resources”; extensions to existing petroleum permits; the addition of platinum to tier 1 permits to make it the same as gold and silver; clarification of the application of the Crown Minerals Act 1991 to existing privileges; clarification of the proprietary status of permits acquired by the Crown; references to a dwelling change because as was so eloquently explained last night we are going from a “dwelling house” as two words to “dwellinghouse” as one word—or the other way round I cannot quite remember—and other “minor changes consequential” to the above. So those are all the mistakes.But if I look at some of the more serious matters in this bill I think I want to look at the possibility of changing the title and making a suggestion for that. Some of those things are perhaps about sloppiness and about a Minister and a Government that just force through legislation without adequate scrutiny. But there are some changes in this bill that are very very serious and we talked about those last night at the relevant parts of the bill. They are making significant changes to permit processes—creating conditional permits running real risks around health and safety and environmental matters—and in Part 2 they are around covering the whole continental shelf areawhich is an extra 1.7 million square kilometres. So these are serious matters; they are not just sloppiness.Andrew Geddis in an article last night talked about sloppy and highly questionable lawmaking so I would like to suggest that this bill be amended to be called the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act (Sloppy and Highly Questionable Lawmaking) 2013 Amendment Bill” because it has both elements in this. It has both sloppiness and it has some very serious and highly questionable matters in this bill. Or perhaps in more kind of day-to-day language we could call it the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act (Sinister or Stuff-up or Both?) 2013 Amendment Bill” because there are those two elements. So I think that people listening to this debate will be very concerned about this whole process.I want to perhaps suggest another amendment to the name. We sat last night and went through the specifics of this legislation with a Minister in the chair who sat there and failed to answer one single question—not one—and they were serious questions. They were questions about the legality of what was happening here—questions about whether we were breaching international law for example—but still the Minister of Energy and Resources sat there and he read his magazines or at least he pretended to. So I would like to suggest another one which is the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act (Refusal to Answer Questions) 2013 Amendment Bill”. I have never ever seen such a disgraceful performance by a Minister in the face of very serious questioning about important matters that relate to environmental standards that relate to health and safety and that relate to the legality of legislation that we are having to deal with in this House as part of this Government’s push-through of legislation following the Budget.Again I just want to put it in context. A very good piece by Andrew Geddis was entitled “I think National just broke our constitution” and I think that this legislation is part of that process. He refers to the Government pushing through—TIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National): I moveThat the question be now put.BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): When we look at the title the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill we see that it is clearly inappropriate. A better title might be the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act (Failure of the Responsible Minister to Ensure that Legislation is Free of Mistakes) Amendment Bill” or the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act (Failure of Simon Bridges) Amendment Bill”. Or we could have the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act (Failure to Look at Environmental Impacts) Amendment Bill” or the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act (Failure to Look at Ecosystems Vital to New Zealand) Amendment Bill”. The title could be the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act (Failure to Consult with Fisheries to See What Impact This Will Have) Amendment Bill”. Or we could have the “Crown Minerals Amendment Act (What Goes Under the Water—Take A Look at Open-cast Mining) Amendment Bill”. There are many titles that would be far more suitable for this bill.I cannot believe that this bill is actually coming into force on 24 May. This is a bill that would be better served in Cold War Russia under a totalitarian regime. Where is the democratic process? The Government is amending an Act due to come in on 24 May—that is next Friday. We can have no confidence at all that it is accurate. I mean this bill could be the “Amendment Act (Write It As I Simon Bridges Speak) Amendment Bill”. We may arrive back on the Tuesday after to find yet another amendment bill is to be debated. There is no point in attempting to pass the blame to Parliamentary Counsel Office staff and Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment staff as National is trying to do because the Government has ministerial responsibility. As Mr Speakerpointed out in his ruling on written questions as recently as Thursday Ministers have responsibility and it was Cabinet that signed off on the original totally messed up bill which is actually an insult to the English language.Hon Gerry Brownlee: The member shouldn’t be talking about anyone else messing up.BRENDAN HORAN: Really? Really? Am I supposed to have messed up Mr Brownlee?Hon Gerry Brownlee: You got sacked.BRENDAN HORAN: I prefer to think of it as being given a totally new perspective on life.Tim Macindoe: It certainly wasn’t a promotion.BRENDAN HORAN: If we are talking about messing up one may look at and address his own sartorial mistakes.Tim Macindoe: The tie isn’t that bad.BRENDAN HORAN: That means comb your hair Mr Macindoe. But if we have a look at the principal Act—Chris Hipkins: He hasn’t got enough.BRENDAN HORAN: —no—we might be better replacing this clause with the Civil List Act which governs ministerial salaries because Mr Bridges is obviously not worth the quarter of a million dollars a year. In the 32 days since the Act was passed that this bill amends Simon has been paid $25000. That is around $1200 for every clause of this bill that needs to be corrected. It is unbelievable.The other day Mr Macindoe stood up and interrupted the process. I cannot believe that Mr Macindoe would get up and say that I was out of order and that I was not following the rules when that side never follows the rules—never mind about democracy never mind about the democratic process.Tim Macindoe: That’s only because your speech was totally irrelevant. You didn’t know that the question was.BRENDAN HORAN: I must say it is very nice to be here on a Saturday morning and see you looking so chipper. This whole bill is a stuff-up—absolutely a stuff-up.Tim Macindoe: You kept getting the forecast wrong.BRENDAN HORAN: But worse than that I would ask some of those members—because for all of his chirping over there Mr Macindoe is a good man. He is an intelligent man. I would ask him to look inside and find that conscience. I know it is there somewhere. There are some very good people over there.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes68New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes46New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 11; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 70 Noes 46.A party vote was called for on the questionThat clause 1 be agreed to.Ayes68New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes46New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 11; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Clause 1 agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 68 Noes 48.A party vote was called for on the questionThat clause 2 be agreed to.Ayes68New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes46New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 11; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Clause 2 agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 68 Noes 48.A party vote was called for on the questionThat clause 3 be agreed to.Ayes68New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes46New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 11; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Clause 3 agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 68 Noes 48.Bill reported without amendment.Report adopted.Third ReadingHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation) on behalf of theMinister of Energy and Resources: I moveThat the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The petroleum minerals sector is already an important contributor to the New Zealand economy. Mining is the backbone of many local communities. For example on the West Coast the mining sector employs over 4000 people generates about one-third of household incomes and contributes $550 million a year to local GDP. The petroleum industry in Taranaki directly employs almost 4000 people with another 4000 in supporting industries and contributes around $2 billion a year in local GDP.Crude oil is New Zealand’s fourth-largest commodity export worth now over $2 billion per year. But the potential for growth is even greater. New Zealand has an extensive untapped wealth of minerals and petroleum resources. The Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 sent a clear signal to investors that this is a supportive regime that requires high standards of its operators. It is central to changes that will allow us to realise the tremendous opportunities that this high-value sector offers.This bill provides commercial certainty to operators who obtained their mining licences under earlier regimes and who are covered by transitional arrangements. It also clarifies how data confidentiality and reporting requirements will apply to all existing privileges. The bill also makes minor changes to the application of operator capability assessments and to the threshold for platinum group elements. These changes do not dilute the robust performance management provisions of the regime in any way but are necessary to improve the alignment of the regime with industry structures and future resource development.The bill also makes minor drafting changes which again are within the scope of the Act itself. Much has been made by the Opposition of the bill correcting errors in the previous Act that was passed. I would note that over two dozen bills in the previous Parliament contained such errors that required correction. The only people in this Parliament who have not made mistakes are those who have not done anything. I also note criticism that these amendments have been picked up before the Act took effect and the Minister has received criticism for that. I take the opposite view. For the Minister to get on and fix these errors before the Act comes into effect ensures that the public is not adversely affected by any such errors.In the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 this Government has established a robust modern and futureproof regime to allow continued responsible development of New Zealand’s petroleum and mineral resources for the benefit of all New Zealanders. I commend the bill to the House.MOANA MACKEY (Labour): Well the National Party sent the Hon Dr Nick Smith down to do the spin because the incompetent Minister of Energy and Resources Simon Bridges—who passed the original bill into law a mere 4 weeks ago and we are already back having to fix it—is such an embarrassment to the National Party that it has sent down its once-proud Bluegreen champion to set the spin for Simon Bridges and for the Government. Dr Nick Smith should hang his head in shame because he has been shown as the charlatan that he is. Bluegreen—what a joke. This bill the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill is absolutely appalling for the environment. Dr Nick Smith said that it sends a message to industry that this is a “supportive regime”. Well that is the understatement of the year. It is more than supportive; it is a developer’s charter. Actually what it is is a litigator’s dream. That is the reality because it is so full of errors it is so full of loopholes that it leaves the Minister wide open to judicial review. So although the Government wants this to be a developer’s charter in fact I suspect that it is going to find that it is somewhat of a false economy in that regard.There has been much mention of the Taranaki District throughout this debate and certainly the oil and gas industry has been very very good for that district. But do you know what? It is doing just fine under the existing regime. Taranaki did not require complete destruction of laws protecting our environment for it to do as well as it has done. So why do we require this legislation and previous legislation that completely undermines the protection of our environment unless it is because we want to start carrying out activities that previously would not have been allowed because they are too risky they are too dangerous and they do provide too much of a risk to the environment? That is why we are doing it. It is because the Government has no plan B. This is it. This pokies and assets sales—that is it. So if this does not deliver the benefits promised then the Government is kind of screwed. That is why it is deciding that it would rather screw the environment and that is an absolute shame.The incompetence of Minister Simon Bridges is incredible. Not only are we back having to pass an amendment bill weeks after we passed the original amendment bill before that bill has even come into force but he sat there in the chair during theCommittee stage like a dried arrangement and did not take a single call to answer very very serious questions that the Opposition was putting to him. I do not know whether he does not know the answers whether he is just too arrogant to think that he should have to give answers on his quarter-of-a-million-dollar salary or whether actually he has no answer. I suspect that it is the latter—that actually he has no adequate answers to the questions that we were putting because this is a seriously flawed piece of legislation.What this bill does is it extends the protest ban that was introduced by amendment late in the piece—it did not go to a select committee in the original amendment bill—to ban protesting against deep-sea oil drilling in our exclusive economic zone. The Minister said at the time that it was about safety. Maybe the Hon Dr Nick Smith can answer this. If it is about safety then why is every vessel that engages in dangerous and reckless behaviour not covered by it? Why is it only protest vessels and only protest vessels that are protesting against deep-sea oil drilling? Dr Smith? Yes exactly—exactly. Because if that is what it is about we could be here in urgency passing a bill that extends the Maritime Transport Act and the Crimes Act which cover dangerous and reckless behaviour by vessels in our territorial waters into the exclusive economic zone. Why did we not do that? That would have covered everyone. That would have meant that no matter who you are no matter what reason you are doing it for if you behave in a dangerous way that puts lives at risk you will be held accountable. Well under this Government’s law they are not. In the exclusive economic zone you can threaten people’s lives and it is legal. An activity that would be illegal in our territorial waters is legal in our exclusive economic zone because the Government cares about dangerous and reckless behaviour only if it is opposing deep-sea oil drilling. How completely completely repugnant is that? Why are we not passing a law that covers everyone? I would like one National Party member to actually answer that question. This is nothing more—nothing more—than an anti-democratic Draconian piece of legislation that we should all be ashamed of.What it does this amendment bill is it extends that ban out into the continental shelf into the waters above the continental shelf and for the first time right up to the beaches. So protest activity is banned from the beaches out into the high seas. The problem that we have and the second question I would like an answer to—and maybe the Hon Dr Nick Smith can answer this one—is that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade tells us and the United Nations convention on the continental shelf tells us that we do not have the right to pass legislation on the water column above the continental shelf. We have the right to exploit minerals in the continental shelf we can drill into it and we can tunnel into it but in the water we have no jurisdiction. The example the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade gives is shipping activity. It says that New Zealand has no right to pass laws regulating shipping activity in the water above the continental shelf. So here is my question. How is it then that we have the right to regulate shipping activity that is protesting in the water above the continental shelf? We do not. It is humiliating that the Government is sitting here passing law that we have no right to pass. You might as well pass a law on Mars because you do not have jurisdiction there either.So here we are putting the Government at risk because if it decides under this law it is passing which we actually have no right to pass that it is going to take criminal action against a vessel that is operating out there in the high seas and that vessel then turns round and challenges that because New Zealand has no right to pass those laws—those laws have no legal enforcement—then we leave taxpayers open. Actually it is just really bloody embarrassing quite frankly that the Government cannot even work that out. This is why the bill should have gone to a select committee. We would have got answers to these very very important questions.My third question to which there was no answer is about the fact that we now currently have two criminal offence and penalty regimes operating in our territorial waters for vessels that are protesting. We have the Maritime Transport Act and the Crimes Act which are already in place and now we have this new protest ban. Mr Brownlee maybe you can answer this question. When the police are called out to arrest someone for dangerous activity in our territorial waters under which regime do they operate? Do they flip a coin? Which one gets precedence? It is a very simple question. Do you have an answer? No I did not think so. No I did not think so. I did not think so because this is such a shambles such—Hon Gerry Brownlee: What a load of grandstanding rubbish.MOANA MACKEY: Oh Mr Brownlee is very very grumpy that he has to be here on a Saturday morning. Well he should not have put such shoddy legislation into the urgency motion then. This is just so utterly ridiculous and embarrassing that it defies belief. I want to know where the Attorney-General is on this. Where is Chris Finlayson? We have had no New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet on this legislation. We have had no regulatory impact statement. We have had no ability to scrutinise the legislation at a select committee to see whether or not it is consistent with international law. Where is our Attorney-General? He is meant to be the protector of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in this country and he is derelict in and absent from his duty. We even had to be subjected to the spectacle of our Attorney-General coming down in the second reading debate giving a speech defending this legislation and insinuating trying to give the pretence that actually it had had a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet. When we asked him to actually table it it transpired that there was not one. It was all just a show to try to make it look like the Government had done the work it should have done when it had not.On top of that we do not have any regulatory impact statement for this piece of legislation. All we got was a regulatory impact statement for the previous bill. We do not know what the risks are so I took it upon myself to draft a regulatory impact statement on behalf of the Government. It reaches the standard of quality that we have seen in the other statements in this urgency motion. This is it—this blanked-out document is what I think the regulatory impact statement on this piece of legislation would have looked like. It is very informative—very informative. It took me a long time to draft it. It is an official legal opinion. It is of far higher quality than any information any Government member has brought into the House during this debate. It is of far higher quality than any information our Attorney-General has brought into the House on this debate and the debate on the previous amendment bill. This is about the same level of information that we have had. This is about the same level of quality of information we have had on this piece of legislation. This is a shameful shameful day for the House and the Government should hang its head in shame.TIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave to correct a vote that I cast on behalf of the Māori Party on in fact all of the clauses during the Committee stage. I exercised two proxy votes in good faith but no vote should have been cast.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to correct the vote. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. Could the whip now just deliver the result of the changed vote? He is not now voting for the Māori Party?TIM MACINDOE: The Māori Party votes were cast against each of the clauses. I should not have cast those votes and I am afraid I was made aware of that only after I had done so.Mr SPEAKER: On that basis the correct result for each of those votes was Ayes 68 Noes 46.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am pleased to stand in the third reading debate on the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill. I am not quite sure whether New Zealanders would understand why the previous speaker Moana Mackey was holding up a picture of a barcode but good on her anyway. I thought it was her speech notes.I would like to just raise a point because the previous speaker has harped on in this debate a number of times about why we are even having an amendment bill and why we cannot just stay with what we used to have. She was part of the select committee process when we took on board the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy and we added into the bill matters around health and safety. We know that the industry of mining whether it is under the ground in open mines or petroleum is a very dangerous industry and obviously history has shown that to us. We also know of course that the report of the team the working group that Rob Jager from Shell New Zealand chaired said that there were areas where we could see improvements take place.So it is absolutely essential that we have revised legislation around these matters. It is responsible for us to do it; it is irresponsible for us not to. Let us make it very clear on that matter. We want men and women who go to our workplaces every day to come home safe at night and that is through every industry every sector whether that is mining or whether that is agriculture. We know that a large number of people sadly are injured and even worse lose their lives in workplace accidents in this country. We as a Government are determined to reduce that so that we can have families that are united and do not lose loved ones.The Government’s Business Growth Agenda supports New Zealand businesses to grow in order to create jobs. This piece of legislation is about that. It has incorporated in it very strong measures around how we interact with our environment. We know that in order for New Zealand to grow and prosper for its economic activity to be lifted and for New Zealanders to have what they want we must engage utilise and exploit our natural resources in this country in an appropriate and a responsible way. I believe that this bill covers those areas and gets the balance right. I know there are all sorts of debates about where the point lies in that balance but we believe on this side of the House that the Kiwi way of life is not just about enjoying our environment but about being able to afford to enjoy it. So we must have strong incomes and we must create jobs.Moana Mackey: Answer the questions we actually asked.JONATHAN YOUNG: You know that up in your neck of the woods up there in Poverty Bay you have potential and you have opportunity—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Do not bring the Speaker into the debate.JONATHAN YOUNG: The member understands what I have said. I believe also that she has been on the record as saying that she looks forward to the opportunities that exist through this. I am very pleased to stand in support of this legislation.I say on behalf of the Minister of Energy and Resources that when omissions were noted and seen he worked quickly to bring these to our attention and have them rectified. You know we would certainly hear howls of derision and anger from the other side of the House if we knew and did nothing about them. I am sure that as the member Andrew Williams has stated a number of times in his speeches this is actually a good responsible response to those issues. Thank you.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): It is entirely possible to be tolerant of mistakes that people make for the first time in a new job and often there is leeway given to people who do make mistakes as they get to grips with a new job. But the stakes arevery high when it comes to this House. The stakes are very high when it comes to the legislation governing activities in this country.This legislation the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill has been a complete debacle from beginning to end. The spin that the National Government is trying to put on this amendment bill to an amendment Act is just farcical. The spin now says: “Well isn’t the Minister good that he spotted the mistakes?” which he clearly did not; otherwise he would not have brought in an amendment bill in the parlous state that it was. The spin is: “Isn’t it good that he spotted those mistakes and he’s moved to correct them?”. In fact he has moved so quickly to correct them that it is quite possible that this piece of legislation will come into effect before the amendment Act that it seeks to amend. He is so speedy about addressing these errors that he may find himself tripping up on the dates if he is not careful.This is the modus operandi of this Government. The modus operandi of this Government is to sell our laws to allow big business to come in and exploit our resources without care about health and safety because those provisions are weakened and without care about our environment because those provisions are weakened and to say to everybody who looks like a company that will invest in oil and gas: “Come here. Our laws can be altered for you.” But this particular Minister has excelled even that modus operandi. He is now offering to oil and gas companies laws that we do not even have the right to make. He is offering to amend laws that we do not have the jurisdiction to make in order to make it easy for oil and gas exploration companies to come and wreak havoc on our resources. In this respect not only is it a contempt of Parliament and a contempt of the democratic process but it is a contempt of the rights of people to submit and have their views heard on this legislation.The bill has been rammed through the House under urgency for no particularly good reason. But what it shows is that this Government works for the benefit of vested interests and works for the benefit of big business in the hope that it can find 170000 jobs which it promised some years ago and which it is failing—failing—to come anywhere near. In order to do that it will sell its mother to bring big business to this country and allow it complete free reign over our environment over our health and safety standards and now over the waters above the continental shelf which we do not have jurisdiction to legislate over. So it is not only the laws that we make that are ours to make but the laws that we are making that are not ours to make.I want to go to the question about protests—the curtailing of people’s legitimate right to protest. Through this whole debate we have not had the privilege of an answer to any question we have raised. We have not had any member opposite get up and justify this Minister’s bill because first of all it is not justifiable but secondly they are so contemptuous of the process in this House that the only chance they give for this bill to be scrutinised is in this Chamber and never mind that 35000 people submitted on the previous legislation which was then amended by an amendment Act which we are now amending—if people can keep up with that.I am concerned that they are vesting democratic rights to protest in big business because it seems to me that the 500-metre exclusion zone that any protest vessel must have from an exploratory vessel or an oil and gas vessel—let us just put it that way—means it must stay 500 metres from the corporate-interest vessel. We can only assume that as the corporate-interest vessel moves around the 500-metre zone goes with it. So it could push protest vessels back on to shore. Is there no way in which people can ever get closer than 500 metres even if the corporate vessel breaches the 500-metre limit?We can have people protesting but not within 500 metres. I presume that means that the democratic right to protest has now been lodged with corporate interests. So it is corporate interests that now have the benefit of dictating where New Zealanders mightprotest because as they move around they have this protection zone of 500 metres within which no one can protest.This is shabby law. It is offensive law. It is sloppy law. It has been a chapter of errors from the beginning and the Minister seems to be incompetent and inadequate to the task. This really does lay down a new level of ministerial incompetence the likes of which we have not seen before. It is a shame because the National Party does have a proud heritage of its own which it can defend. In fact it was 77 years ago this week that the National Party was first founded—77 years ago the National Party was founded. The leader at the time was of course—who was the leader of the National Party at the time? Who was the first leader?Tim Macindoe: Adam Hamilton.Hon MARYAN STREET: Excellent—you pass. Adam Hamilton was the first leader of the party. He is described by theDictionary of New Zealand Biographyas lacking charisma. However he was a Southland farmer. He moved a motion of no confidence in Michael Joseph Savage at the time. Well that was an epic fail. That is the only thing that this Minister has in common with what has been up until now a proud history for the National Party in its own terms.This bill is a travesty. This Minister is incompetent. This Minister does the National Party’s reputation no good even in its own terms. He does it no good. But worse than that—and I am not here to defend the National Party’s heritage but you know somebody has to; this Minister clearly is not—this is an offence against democratic rights to protest which are now being vested in corporate interests. So as long as the Shell ship or whatever it is is cruising around everybody has to stay 500 metres away. Why is there not a provision that makes the corporate ship liable if it gets within 500 metres of a protest ship—Moana Mackey: And acts dangerously.Hon MARYAN STREET: —and behaves dangerously? If this is about safety at sea why does it not apply to all ships? This is not about safety at sea; this is about selling our legislation to corporate interests it is about selling legislation that we are not even entitled to make to corporate interests and it is an affront to the democratic process and the rights of citizens in New Zealand. This bill is a travesty from beginning to end and the National Party members opposite are just sitting there riding out the time for this bill. We have not had the courtesy of any answers and that goes to how they treat the process in this House. Thank you.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to oppose the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill. Because we are sitting under urgency on a Saturday I have got babysitting duties and had to bring my kids to Parliament. They are in the parents’ room at the moment. Coming down to the Chamber I was thinking about why it is important to oppose this bill going through under urgency. It is not a cliché but it is because of my kids.As a parent the best moments I believe you can have as a Kiwi parent are playing with your kids on the beach. It is such an iconic Kiwi experience and by George we have got some amazing beaches around this country and I do not want to see that special experience destroyed for New Zealanders. I know that this afternoon thousands of Kiwis are going to the beaches to draw a line in the sand against this Government’s deep-sea drilling agenda. Hundreds of New Zealanders are joining hands across the beach in about a dozen cities I understand. I am going to be there with my children. We are drawing a line in the sand. We are saying that if the Government cannot guarantee that it can deal with a spill if the Government cannot guarantee that it can avoid a catastrophic deep-sea spill we should not be doing it.What we know is that this Government is opening up huge acreage with 189000 square kilometres opened up a fortnight ago for tender mostly for deep-sea oil drilling permits. What we know is that the deeper you go and the deeper you drill the more the risks are magnified. The industry itself says that it operates at the frontiers of technology geology and geography. Just last week Lord Browne the former chair of BP said that the risks for deep-sea oil drilling are too high.That is why I am opposing this bill because what this bill is doing through a bad ridiculous embarrassing process and through a shocking shoddy parliamentary process is just encouraging greater speculation in the industry. It is inviting cowboys to come down to New Zealand and be a risk to our environment and our beaches. The risks are too high yet the Government is trying to clamp down on protests.A couple of years ago when theRena spill occurred with those 350 tonnes of oil what we saw was New Zealand woefully unprepared to deal with a spill. Yet the Government still nominated its oil spill capacity to be only 5500 tonnes. What we know is that a deep-sea well blowout could release 600000 tonnes. In America they had 40000 people working on a spill. We have got 400 trained responders. In America they had 1000 vessels. In New Zealand we have got three dinghies. In America they had everything in place but it was still catastrophic and cost $40 billion. Yet this Government says that the maximum penalties are only $10 million and a company has to have insurance of only $30 million.The Government cannot guarantee that we will not see a spill. The Government is not prepared; it is not protecting the taxpayer from liability. That is why we are opposing this bill—this ridiculous bill that just shows the incompetence of the Minister of Energy and Resources. Here we are a matter of weeks after the Crown Minerals Amendment Act was passed. Before it has even come into effect the Government is having to modify it to fix up the mistakes. But it is worse than that because through urgency it is trying to slip in some sneaky changes to benefit its mates in the oil industry.The Government has no vision for this economy. It would rather gamble with our environment gamble with our fishing industry gamble with our tourism industry and gamble with that important Kiwi experience of enjoying a beach with your kids. It is going to gamble with that to support its mates because it has got no vision. But there is a better way. We should be encouraging clean energy manufacturing jobs and a smart innovative economy but the Government is not doing that. It is putting all the eggs in this basket. What you see is the Government cutting special deals. That is why under urgency it is passing amending legislation to amend legislation that still has not come into effect with no select committee process no regulatory impact statement and in fact no actual answers in the Committee stage.The only parliamentary scrutiny our country has is the ability to question the Minister and his officials. Yet the Minister refused to take a single call and neither did any National member take a call in the Committee stage. This is quite simply lawmaking at its worst. But what we are gambling with is our environment and our economy. What the substantive amendments contained in this amendment bill do is encourage speculation. Once this bill is passed and signed into law to apply successfully for a permit companies do not have to have the financial capability to be able to do the work they are promising to do. Let us say that again: you do not have to have the financial capability to do the work you are promising to do—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Not the Speaker.GARETH HUGHES: Apologies Mr Assistant Speaker. This is deeply worrying because what we are doing is encouraging speculation in the industry. The Government’s oil drilling agenda has been so woefully unsuccessful. With Petrobrasleaving Apache Corporation leaving and Anadarko delaying all its work the Government is trying to look as though it is busy by encouraging a proliferation of small players to speculate in the industry because the plan has been just so unsuccessful. The second point is that what we are seeing—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Ha! The member has scared them off.GARETH HUGHES: Well Mr Brownlee I am quite happy to have taken a strong stance along with the majority of New Zealanders. Remember that 99 percent of Kiwis in the regulations submissions said it should be a prohibited activity because you cannot guarantee it.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order!GARETH HUGHES: And Mr Assistant Speaker what we are seeing is this Government making it easier to get a deep-sea oil permit without the technical capability. Let us say that again. You do not have to have experience of knowing how to drill a well to get a deep-sea drill permit under National. What we see this Government saying—and we saw John Key a month ago saying—is that it is not going to invite cowboys down to New Zealand but this is exactly what this legislation rammed through under urgency does. It is about getting cowboys to come down to New Zealand to speculate. We do not want people learning how to drill on the job—we do not want people learning how to drill on the job. The Government is gambling with our economy and gambling with our environment. It is not on because there are better ways forward.Just lastly what we see is clause 14 being sneaked through by Minister Bridges. Originally Parliament saw the traditional New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and select committee processes bypassed through the introduction of a Supplementary Order Paper. Now the Government is using urgency to amend something—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I have members who do not have the floor interjecting on each other. If they want a call that is fine. They can do it later on. But they know it is out of order and it is discourteous to the member who is trying to speak. Courtesy is contagious members.GARETH HUGHES: Let us hope the National members can take a call and talk about the substance so that they can talk about why they are weakening our permit rules why they are weakening our regulations and why they are risking and gambling with our environment.The important breach of human rights and I believe international law is in clause 14 which they are sneaking through. They are sneaking through under urgency something that had no scrutiny because they snuck it through in an amendment to the previous legislation. This is not on. Eminent legal professors have said that. What they are doing is extending their five new criminal provisions the so-called Anadarko amendment introduced through a Supplementary Order Paper out into the continental shelf.This is interesting because New Zealand does not actually have jurisdiction over the continental shelf—if you look at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade website look at the Ministry for the Environment website and look at the conflicts wracking China Japan and the Arctic countries that are debating this very issue at the moment—but the Government is quite prepared to unilaterally run ahead and say: “Oh sure we don’t have jurisdiction but we’re going to apply laws that relate only to the oil industry that relate only to protest.” It is so scared of protest—it is sending the message that protest is effective and it is laying down a challenge to protestors that the industry is scared of the work they are doing—that it is prepared to run roughshod over New Zealanders’ human rights. It is an honourable tradition which the former Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer Peter Williams QC and Dame Anne Salmond NewZealander of the Year have said is such a fundamental part of New Zealand and such an honourable tradition.The Government is ramming through and extending these egregious powers over an extended 1.7 million square kilometres of the continental shelf. It is deeply worrying because it is a breach of human rights. It is deeply worrying because it is going to have international geopolitical ramifications. New Zealand is unilaterally running ahead extending its jurisdiction. What we are seeing is all in support of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation which only a fortnight ago said it is going to be applying for a permit—where else but the continental shelf.This is a worrying precedent we are seeing from this Government. We are seeing laws being made for Hollywood. We are seeing laws being made for casinos. We are seeing laws being made for the industry by the industry. This is not on. It is not what Kiwis expect. This Government has got tens of millions of dollars in subsidies pages and pages of tax exemptions free research support free support from officials and legislation being passed for the industry. It even calls out the navy to support Petrobras in the oil industry. This Government is sending out a very important message: “Drill baby drill!”. New Zealand is open if you are a foreign offshore oil company.What about the wind industry? What about the manufacturing industry? What about the geothermal industry? This Government is sending the message that this is not a level playing field. It is going to subsidise support and do anything it can to support one particular industry because it has got no vision. It would rather risk our environment and gamble that someone will find something somewhere and that will be our path to prosperity. It is not because we have got the fourth-lowest royalty rate in the world. We know from Taranaki that we are going to see hardly any jobs.What we know is we are going to see all the profits flow offshore. The Government’s own report says 90 percent of the profits are going to flow offshore. That means hardly any jobs hardly any taxes hardly any royalties and profits flowing offshore yet risking our environment. Why does the Government not listen to the PricewaterhouseCoopers report that said there is a $22 billion clean-energy opportunity? Why does it not listen to the Pure Advantage report that says there is a $6 trillion clean-tech industry that we could be getting a slice of? But no this Government would rather keep its head in the sand and bend over backwards to follow this disturbing trend.This is lawmaking at its worst. There is a better way. The Green Party is offering solutions to make New Zealand a richer place and to enhance those beautiful beach experiences for Kiwi families.Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie): I rise to take a quick call on the third reading of this bill the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill. This National Government was elected to provide an environment where jobs and opportunities for all New Zealanders would be created. When you talk to people out in the communities out in the streets of Auckland in the provinces and rural communities what do they want? They want jobs. They want opportunities. They want independence for their families.What we have just heard from Gareth Hughes and Clint and his mates is that they do not want jobs. They do not want to create opportunities for people out in our communities. I challenge Clint and Gareth Hughes to come out and talk to people out in the communities that I represent. What they want is jobs. They want to feed their families. They want to clothe their families. They want to educate their kids to live a Kiwi lifestyle that they have been used to. I challenge Gareth Hughes to do that. This petroleum and minerals industry employs 7000 people—$1.8 billion. It has the potential to create 40000 more jobs and $12 billion a year for our country. That is what it has the potential to do and this Government supports that notion that we should beproviding jobs for those people in our communities. I support this bill because it is our future. It is about our families our communities and their independence and particularly it is about our children. I commend this bill to the House.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I will take a call on behalf of New Zealand First. We have been looking at this bill the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill last night and now again today on Saturday and we are coming to the end. I would like to add the views of New Zealand First which as always are the common-sense views the level-headed views and the views that I believe the majority of New Zealanders would wish to see in this House.We have heard opinions and viewpoints from all extremities but at the end of the day a great deal of it is a lot of red herrings and a lot of diversions away from the fact that New Zealand is fortunate to be sitting on a very significant resource. For a population of 4.5 million people we are in a very very fortunate place in the world to have an enormous resource and an enormous potential that if you ask most New Zealanders we certainly cannot just ignore. We must take the opportunities we are given and look at those opportunities in a very sensible sustainable and responsible way. It must be done and we all agree—every New Zealander—that we would not wish for the environment to be in any way damaged and we would not wish for us to put our jewel in the Crown our wonderful environment at risk. At the same time if it is done sensibly and responsibly there is enormous potential to improve the wealth the prosperity and the well-being of all New Zealanders as a result.In this regard New Zealand First has supported this bill in most areas but we did you will note vote against one aspect and that was the aspect in relation to protests on the high seas. That is one area where New Zealand First cannot agree with the Government because we do believe still in the freedom to protest. We could not in our own conscience vote for something that would take away that right of New Zealanders. I have mentioned in this House in the past that we can recall the frigates theOtago and theTaranaki going off to Mururoa Atoll being sent by our Government to protest on the high seas about atmospheric testing in French Polynesia. Our Government sent those vessels. Likewise I can remember when theHaddo was coming up the harbour in Auckland and New Zealanders were out there protesting. So we are a nation of free protest and we do respect that. New Zealand First could not go along with that part of this bill because we still believe in the right of New Zealanders to protest anywhere as long as they are keeping a lawful manner. To protest is their inherent right. That is why we have plaques on the walls of this Chamber representing the many great battles that New Zealanders have given their lives for such as Passchendaele Messines Egypt and Gallipoli. Therefore we do uphold the right of people to defend the rights of their country but also to defend the rights of freedom of speech.Back on to the Crown minerals. We do agree that there were some significant errors in the original Crown Minerals Amendment Act that needed rectifying. This legislation was put down to be enacted next week on 24 May. It was then found that there were some errors in the original drafting which if they were not sorted out with this amendment bill in fact by next week would cause some real complications in terms of the original Crown Minerals Act.It was simple. The main premise the big one of this whole bill was the fact that the tier 1 applicants potentially would not be able to operate after 24 May if this amendment bill was not put through because they are not always necessarily the final company that does the exploration the drilling the actual mining or whatever it is. Often they are scout companies. As I mentioned in the House last night they are the forerunners that go out look at the opportunities look at the potential of the resource do the research do the initial exploration and do the initial fact-finding to see whether there issomething actually there to take forward. If they do establish that then often that is when other major international investors and indeed New Zealand investors would get involved and perhaps take it to the next stage. They were going to be excluded under the original amendment Act and it could have meant that many many operators in New Zealand could literally have had to cease operations because they would have found that they were not compliant with the original Act.That would have been an unacceptable situation. That would have potentially cost jobs in this country. That would have potentially cost investment in this country and that would not be a good thing. New Zealand First would not condone doing something that would result in New Zealanders potentially losing work losing opportunities and losing jobs. That would not be a good thing. We do support the bill in that respect.But as I mentioned in the House last night our support is contingent also on hopefully in the future there being a review in other areas of this whole minerals and resource taking within New Zealand. We in New Zealand First firmly believe that for the country to truly prosper from the taking of minerals both onshore and offshore all New Zealanders must benefit from it. In particular we believe that where New Zealanders and where regions and where provinces are affected by the taking of those resources and the taking of those minerals they in turn should receive a significant amount of the benefit back. The Crown should not just take the royalties and they should not just disappear into a big black hole in Wellington just to be used to pay for other activities of Government and to prop up other areas of Government. They should be returned to where the minerals were taken from.In that respect New Zealand First has put out a policy in the last month or so where we would if we had the opportunity to have influence over this ensure that 25 percent of the royalties taken by the Crown for the minerals would be returned back to the region and back to the province from where they were taken.That would help those regions to underwrite and pay for some of the infrastructure—such as roading such as local infrastructure and such as good facilities for their communities and amenities for their communities—to in some way offset their own costs but also to compensate them for some of the downside of the effects of mining or minerals extraction or exploration or drilling in their particular regions. We think it is a win-win. We have had extremely good feedback from around New Zealand on this. We think it is a positive thing. We think New Zealanders would get on board. We actually think that in order to take New Zealanders with us to take New Zealanders forward and see a benefit in exploration to see a benefit in mining and to see a benefit in taking mineral resources from our wonderful country all New Zealanders should benefit and New Zealand First would certainly ensure that that was the case.Just in closing New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. We do believe in jobs we do believe in employment and we do believe in taking this country forward.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Sat sri akaal. Thank you for the opportunity to stand and support this Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill at its third reading. This Government has got a very focused growth agenda. It is ensuring that this economy grows and jobs are created for New Zealanders. I agree with Andrew Williams that we need infrastructure. We need schools roads—all those things. This Government has been working on this for the last 4 years or 5 years. I can assure you that this will continue and it will support all the job opportunities being created. I commend this bill to the House.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): I once again rise to speak on the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill. I would like to invoke our good and well-loved late friend Parekura Horomia who when asked early in his political career in the House about a particular piece of legislation on a very important and topical issue of the dayresponded in terms that were regarded then as parliamentary so hopefully they will be regarded as parliamentary today. He said that he wanted a piece of legislation that could not be frigged around with. What has happened with this legislation is completely the opposite. We have not had a good quality piece of legislation and it has been frigged around with. Yet again we are asked to do exactly that today because this Government cannot and will not get it right. We are in the extraordinary situation of having a reasonably comprehensive amendment bill to an amendment Act that has itself not yet taken effect. If that does not tell you about the quality of the management of legislation through this House then I am not quite sure what will.Earlier in this third reading debate Jonathan Young said that the changes in this bill were necessary for health and safety in the industry. Well that is just patently not correct. The thing about that is that this Government has finally started to take health and safety seriously. It could not do anything other than that. It had the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy saying that things were in a parlous state and something had to change. It had its own committee chaired by the very good the very great Rob Jager himself the head of an oil company in this country Shell Todd Oil Services who recommended radical change to our health and safety approach. Nothing in this bill is going to make a single bit of difference to health and safety. We need a comprehensive approach and if anything what this bill will do is make it worse because the health and safety oversight required under—I have to get this right—not the primary legislation but the amendment Act that we are now amending is itself pretty weak. It is pretty light. It simply requires the Minister to be satisfied that it is likely that a permit applicant has the technical capability and the financial means to do the job. There is no objective standard to it and it of course requires the Minister merely to be satisfied. That is a pretty low standard. With all due respect to the members in this House that is a pretty low standard in reality.What this bill then does is split that up. It says that whereas before the Minister had to be satisfied about technical capability and financial means throughout the entire process up to exploration drilling now we will split that up and we will say: “Listen if you have got the technical capability and the financial means for the prospecting aspect of it we will just let you go then and come back to us for the next bit.” And then all of a sudden what apparently this bill contemplates is that if when the Halliburtons the Schlumbergers and the Shells have got their initial permit and the Minister’s satisfaction as to technical and financial capability they come back and say: “That’s it. There are barrels under there. The black gold is going to flow. We want to come back for the rest of it.” now the Minister is going to be able to stand up and say: “Uh-uh you’ve now got to show me a second round of technical and financial capability.” There is just no way on the track record of this Government that we can be sure that any Minister in this Government is going to be able to stand up to a Schlumberger a Shell or a Halliburton and say: “Oh no you’ve got to stop what you’re doing now because you’ve got to have better than what you’ve got now even though I approved it last time.” That is incredible. So what this bill does is it weakens that level of oversight at a time when we are meant to be being convinced that this Government is taking health and safety seriously. This goes in totally the opposite direction and that is why it is wrong. That is why we are opposing it.Mr Lotu-Iiga in his speech said that it is all about providing jobs. He trotted out the old repeated assertion that the parties in Opposition do not want jobs for people which is completely ridiculous. He might want to know—and Jonathan Young knows this as well as I do—that we have had probably the best summer of oil exploration and oil industry activity in many years in Taranaki in the summer just gone and you knowwhat the most recent employment statistics show? Unemployment in Taranaki went up by 500. In the last—Su’a William Sio: How much?ANDREW LITTLE: Five hundred. Five hundred more jobless in Taranaki in the last year after the best summer season of oil industry activity we have seen in many years. This is not the panacea. This is not the gold at the end of the rainbow that this Government trots out. Let us do this activity because yes there is the possibility of generating some value. But this is not the answer to New Zealand’s long-term economic structural problems. We have got to get past that. Until we have people in office in Government and on the Treasury benches who understand that New Zealand has deep-seated long-term structural economic problems and are prepared to do something about it then life ain’t going to be too good for us in 5 years’ or 10 years’ time. This is not going to cure it. This is not the cure. But while we have an oil and gas industry and while we have Ministers who have responsibility for providing oversight then the least I think New Zealand expects is that we will operate to world’s best practice. This bill will not do that. It does the opposite. It is a highly subjective approach a highly subjective test that will not ensure that we have the best possible not only health and safety but also environmental standards operating when it comes to oil and gas both prospecting and exploration.And then the other insidious aspect of this bill is the conceit in it. It is this attempt to legislate for something that we simply do not know we have the power to legislate for and that is control or management of all the water above the continental shelf. We have had evidence before this House in this urgent procedure that suggests that it is hugely doubtful whether we can even pass this law or at least pass a law and hope that it has meaningful effect. We do not have a response from the Minister of Energy and Resources. The Minister sat in the chair all through the Committee stage and did not respond to a single point that was raised—legitimate points backed up by evidence. We have not had the benefit of a select committee process where we can call upon the officials professionals and independent advisers. We have not had the benefit of that and we are ramming this through roughshod as Mr Henare was concerned to hear earlier in this debate. It is being rammed through roughshod and he knows what that is. He would have seen that a few times in his time as a union official I know because in his day when he was a union official ramming things through roughshod was the only way they did things. I was a union official in the democratic days of the union movement. Things were all sweetness and light—Hon Tau Henare: When was that?ANDREW LITTLE: —and it was good. And we did good things.Hon Members: Just after he left.ANDREW LITTLE: Just after Tau Henare left—that is right. So it is not possible—[Interruption] That is right—wore the leather jackets up to the Marsden Point oil refinery. We know how it operated. That was just for the clerical workers. We know how it worked. We are concerned. We did good things and the union members of Taranaki including the bits of Taranaki that fall in the electorate of the member opposite Shane Ardern—they were happy people and good people people who worked at Motunui and the Waitara Valley plant in the days when it fell in a different electorate. But it is in New Plymouth now in its rightful place and things are going well.We are opposed to this legislation because it treats with contempt the people in the oil and gas industry particularly those who are working at the coalface and doing the dangerous work. It treats with contempt those who wish to exercise their right to dissent to activities that are happening and raise a voice of protest. It treats with contempt the very members of this House and the lawmaking procedures that we are elected to doand to fulfil in good faith and with proper information and good process. It treats all of that with contempt. It is a bad bill. It is a wrong bill. And this will be a day of shame for this House when this bill goes through.Dr JIAN YANG (National): Wo hen hao xiexie. I believe that my colleague Jonathan Young knows Taranaki much much better than the previous speaker Mr Andrew Little. So when Jonathan says that Mr Little is wrong Mr Little must be wrong.As I said at the first reading the aim of this bill the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill is to encourage the safe and sensible development of Crown-owned minerals by streamlining and simplifying the Crown minerals regulatory regime and by ensuring better coordination of regulatory agencies. This bill provides commercial certainty to operators who obtained their mining licences under earlier regimes and who are covered by transitional arrangements. It also clarifies how data confidentiality and reporting requirements will apply to all existing privilege holders. Under Labour no real action was taken to regulate offshore extraction of oil gas and mineral resources and/or to protect our seas.This bill shows that the National-led Government is developing our resources in a responsible manner. It will create higher-paid jobs raise our standards of living and build a more productive economy for all New Zealanders. So I support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I advise the House that this is a split call. [Interruption] Have we finished? Good. I call the Hon Ruth Dyson.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): There is no rush Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is all right is it? I cannot hear you.Hon RUTH DYSON: You are quite correct it is a split call. Could I just commend the member who has just resumed his seat Dr Jian Yang and say that he made a more valuable contribution to the debate than has the Minister of Energy and Resources throughout these entire proceedings. Throughout the first reading the second reading the Committee stage and now the third reading the Minister has not made a single contribution of any value at all to this debate. I think that is really doing a disservice not only to the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill but actually to his colleagues and to the House. I think that Parliament should be treated in a better way in a more respectful way than that. The Hon Simon Bridges has I think let the National Party team down in this great week of its 77th anniversary as a political party in New Zealand.In terms of both the process of this bill and the content I am very pleased to be joining my Labour colleagues in opposing it. When looking first of all at the process members have been quite puzzled by the name of this bill the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill which will become the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Act 2013. It sounds like someone did a cut and paste and made an error in the name of it but the reason it is called such an unusual name is that this bill which we have debated now through all stages under urgency amends mistakes—fixes mistakes—in legislation that has not even come into force yet.We warned the Government at the time to take care with the detail. Oh no the Hon Simon Bridges was so keen to get his name on a bit of law that was passed through its third reading that he totally ignored all the consideration of the House and made a whole lot of mistakes and now he has suddenly come back to Parliament and said: “I’ve got to fix them under urgency.” Well that would not be so bad. He is new at the job and he is human he can make mistakes and we would be happy to fix them up. But he did not do just that. He then took the opportunity of a Budget measure being put through under urgency to make significant changes to the substantive legislation.The first one is of huge concern and that is that it reduces the health and safety the environmental and the financial security considerations around oil and gas exploration. That is a step in the wrong direction after the Commerce Committee took such care over the health and safety considerations in the previous legislation. It is insulting to the select committee which worked so hard. The select committee reconvened to look at the outcomes from the Pike River inquiry and ensured that they were incorporated into the legislation on a pretty across-all-parties basis actually and in a very open way. I commend Jonathan Young the chair for his leading of that process. And then Simon Bridges just biffs it all out. Those considerations are a bit hard for the industry so he reduces them all.The second part of what this bill does—other than fixing up the mistakes of Simon Bridges—is it extends the protest ban. The most controversial part of the last legislation was that this new protest ban was introduced but not for health and safety—not for health and safety. That was what the Minister said at the time: “Oh we care so much about health and safety we’re going to introduce this protest ban.” If that were the case it would have been exactly the same health and safety ban on all vessels but it is not it is just on protest vessels and it covered the exclusive economic zone. That has now been extended to cover the continental shelf—the water above the continental shelf. That is extraordinary.It is very clear from Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade advice on its website that New Zealand does not have jurisdiction over that water. We do not have the right to pass laws in relation to activity in that water. But oh no Simon Bridges mastermind of this Parliament has decided he knows better than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade he knows better than all the advice. So now we have a reduction in the health and safety the environmental and the financial security considerations in regard to exploration and we have an extension of a protest ban into an area that we do not have jurisdiction over and that is why this bill should be thrown out.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I wish to draw a matter to your attention to do with standard of dress in the Chamber. I see there is a member opposite who has graced the Chamber with his presence this morning wearing a jersey. It is correct that he is also wearing a jacket over the top of it but I understood the required standard of dress was business attire. I have had a lot of dealings in business settings over many years. I have not yet seen a business person man or woman wearing a jersey in a business setting. I just wonder whether you might consider whether or not the member is suitably dressed for this Chamber.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I think that is a most frivolous contribution from the member and not one that you should give any time to whatsoever. I notice members—[Interruption] I am speaking to the point of order.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! We have a point of order.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I notice members in the Chamber—there was one member in the Chamber today dressed in a denim suit. Apparently that works.Brendan Horan: Who’s that?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well if you look around—looking over there at one of our colleagues—it is somewhat sartorial. But none the less if we are going to start doing these things there are other members—I have always thought that there is a huge gap between the dress standards for male and female members in here but this is not a way to raise it—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: It is not an appropriate time to raise it and I would ask you to please ignore it.Hon Trevor Mallard: Speaking to the point of order Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Well I guess it is Saturday morning. I call the Hon Trevor Mallard.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I would like sort of unusually to join with Gerry Brownlee not in his negative comments about my colleague Andrew Little but on the substance of the point of order. I think you will be aware because you were here when urgency used to be a regular feature of Saturdays that the Saturday business dress tended to be slightly less formal—as it is in most businesses—than it might be Monday to Thursday or in some cases on Friday. I think Speakers have taken a more relaxed attitude on a Friday. I can remember Roger Douglas here in a jacket and a jersey. He apparently had a collar and tie underneath but the jersey was polo neck so you could not even tell.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.Brendan Horan: Point of order.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): No I do not need any more help. I have listened to the contributions from all sides. I realise it is Saturday morning and we would probably rather be somewhere else. [Interruption] Order! I am on feet. Recognising that the member might be cold I accept that sometimes we do need to wear a jersey under a suit.Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s top-class merino.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am not going to get into what class it is. Who was on their feet? I call the honourable member Eugenie Sage.EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Speaking to the third reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill I say that the Green Party opposes this bill. It is a very troubling bill and there are a number of reasons for that. One of them is that it is being pushed through under urgency with no scrutiny—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Where’s the member’s tie? Coming into the House in an open-neck shirt.EUGENIE SAGE: —and no ability for the public to comment. Yes I am wearing a pink shirt. It was Pink Shirt Day yesterday. I am a day late and that is because we are still on Thursday.When we are dealing with bills under urgency when there is no opportunity for the public to comment or for a select committee to engage with a bill we have only the collective intelligence of members of Parliament in this Chamber. So it has been particularly disturbing that during the Committee stage of the bill we have had no Government members standing up to defend the bill and to engage with the issues that the Opposition has raised. What is even more disturbing is that the Minister in the chair the Minister of Energy and Resources never answered any of the questions that the Opposition was asking. So when it is down to us—because the Government has excluded others from engaging with this bill—we should engage. The Opposition has engaged and has flagged some very troubling aspects of the bill but Government members have not engaged during the Committee stage. That is very disturbing.It is also disturbing that we did not have a regulatory impact statement apart from the one that Moana Mackey produced and held up with a series of black lines on it. Without a regulatory impact statement there has not been an honest effort to explain the implications of the bill. So it has been left to the Opposition to highlight the problems caused by clause 14 and the way in which it extends to the high seas the five criminal offences that were created by the Anadarko Supplementary Order Paper to the principal Act.Without a regulatory impact statement there has been no examination of how this clashes with our responsibilities under the United Nations Convention on the Law of theSea which New Zealand has signed up to nor on what basis the Government is purporting to establish new criminal offences in an area where we do not have the jurisdiction to do so. But because the bill has not gone to a select committee we have not been able to engage with officials.This law that we are passing today is potentially null and void if it overrides and does not implement our international obligations. Yet at no point did the Minister rise to explain what he thought was the jurisdictional basis for doing that. It is interesting that when you look at the comparable Australian legislation which is the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 that legislation provides for a 500-metre no-go zone around oil rigs and similar structures but there is no provision in the Australian legislation for a no-go zone for vessels. That is obviously because Australia understands the requirement of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the fact that that preserves freedom of navigation on the high seas.So why does the Government feel that it has to go so far and potentially breach our international obligations when there are already numerous international instruments and the Maritime Transport Act that address this whole issue of safety of navigation and vessels? Why? It is because under this Government we have a Government that has morphed from being nanny State as it accused the former Labour Government of being to being strong-arm State—one that is intolerant of dissent that is contemptuous of the democratic process and that wants to ensure that people have no opportunity or minimal opportunity to disagree with it. It is prepared to criminalise legitimate protest on the high seas against the Government’s flawed economic agenda which relies so heavily on the exploitation of resources. It is prepared to cut across the whole tradition of dissent and protest on the high seas that is upheld in other international treaties. This is a bad bill. The Green Party is opposing it.BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): I rise to oppose this third reading of the “Crown Minerals Amendment to the Amendment to the Amendment to the Amendment Bill”. I do so because this is a DIY job. It is a fix-up job and not a very good one at that. The same thing is actually happening outside the front of Parliament as is happening here in the debating chamber. [Interruption] We can wait for this member to be told off. I do not mind waiting for a few seconds. But—Hon Gerry Brownlee: That member has certainly been told off.BRENDAN HORAN: Outside—Hon Gerry Brownlee: He sleeps in a dogbox. He lives at the back of the House under a rock where he belongs.BRENDAN HORAN: Mr Brownlee that is the trouble with your side of the House. There are too many lips flapping. You cannot learn anything while your lips are flapping. You need to have those ears opening. Too bad “Big Ears” is not here.Outside the Beehive roof is being replaced because the current roof is not fit for purpose just like that side of the House. The roof is being replaced in copper. How much is that costing—$3 million? Well there you go. That is how much minerals cost because that is Crown mineral copper. It is a Crown mineral but this Government would just give it away to anybody who comes along. Who is out there? Who is going to be mining? Trans-Tasman Resources. Can somebody help me? Who is on the board of Trans-Tasman Resources? Who is that woman? Is it not Ms Shipley? Could that be right? Ms Shipley? I am just pulling out splinters again wondering how many boards that woman is on. But here we are on a Saturday morning because the Minister’s performance is not fit for purpose either.What I wonder—and as I said earlier there are some members over on that side whom I greatly respect—is how those members could possibly support overseas interests foreigners coming in and plundering our natural resources. These mineralshave taken millions of years to accumulate. There are no regulatory impact reports and the fisheries have not been consulted. We do not know what effect it is going to have. If we have a look at open mining on land we may get an idea because this Government is used to subterfuge. Can you imagine the effect on our ecological systems when all of that iron ore and sand is removed? And I have not even begun to touch on mining.This Government has proven that it cannot remove oil from a ship on a rock so how is it going to remove oil that is leaking from the seabed at 1500 metres under the seabed or even if it is 400 metres under? How long is it going to take rescue teams to get there? Where is the infrastructure for us to support this? But most important what is going to be the impact and what are we getting out of it anyway? One to 2 percent profit about which some foreign company will come and say: “This is what we made.” In the case of Trans-Tasman Resources where it brings in the big Chinese ship and it takes out as much iron ore as it wants what else is it taking out and again what is the effect on our ecosystems? Ecosystems are very fragile and we wonder what is going to happen.This is an appalling bill. It is a sell-out. It is a sell-out for New Zealand. It is a sell-out of our children’s future of our heritage. Some of these members may not know what it is like under the water. I do not know when they were last in the surf. But when you dive under a wave—and I can tell you this actually—if you dive under a big wave you can see the water swirling. As it swirls you see the sand moving and within that sand are crustaceans. There is all sorts of sea life. And as those crustaceans are floating around and the shellfish are floating around in come the fish and that is how they feed.Grant Robertson: Why isn’t Mark Mitchell speaking right now?BRENDAN HORAN: Well I am just giving a little basic demonstration of how an ecosystem works in the ocean. Have members on that side even considered the impact on our fisheries? [Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!BRENDAN HORAN: Thank you. I fail to understand how those members who have a conscience can possibly support this bill. You have seen what happened in theRena case. There is oil still floating up and when the wind is in a north-easterly direction as it is today at Mount Maunganui and the surf is up I can go out there and I will still come in with specks of oil on my board. The shellfish off Tauranga have not been fit to eat since theRena disaster. The shellfish have not been fit to eat since theRena disaster but you do not see that in the papers. Why not? Why do you not see it?Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s largely not true that’s why.BRENDAN HORAN: There are a number of reasons why you cannot. Actually Mr Brownlee go and see the local doctors. Go and see Dr Tingey. He will tell you about all the gastro cases that he has seen where people have been eating shellfish and have gotten food poisoning. In Mount Maunganui it is tragic what theRena has done and the ongoing effects.What is going to happen if we get a disaster with oil leaking out to sea? This Government cannot fix it up. Where are the booms to protect? Where are the rescue teams to clean up the mess? This mess will be cleaned up after the next election when a new Government comes in—one with a social conscience one with an environmental conscience and one with—Hon Gerry Brownlee: And one without Brendan Horan.BRENDAN HORAN: I will be here. Do not worry Mr Brownlee. I will be here because I have got an environmental conscience. You would be surprised that there are a lot of people in New Zealand who support my being here.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Name 28 of them.BRENDAN HORAN: Ha ha! But I digress. I would like to again explain what is happening to our environment and what is happening to New Zealand when good people have to go along and follow a bill that is clearly wrong. It is clearly wrong and it has not even come into effect. Here we are rushing through the night trying to pass amendments to the legislation. It is not well worked. It is not very well organised. That is why one of the National members departed. It was not because of a glass of wine; it was because somebody showed their office their electorate office on television and exposed this Government as being totally disorganised just as this bill the writing of this bill shows that this Government cannot do one thing right. Do not let me even start on housing. How are you going to build 39000 houses in Auckland? How are you going to do that? You are completely disorganised.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Irrelevancy.BRENDAN HORAN: Well it is relevant because some of those roofs will have copper spouting which is a Crown mineral—they will. This Government says there are going to be 39000 houses and there are a lot of Crown minerals in that. But guess what—we will be buying them from overseas interests. Thank you.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill be now read a third time.Ayes68New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes46New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 11; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Bill read a third time.Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment BillFirst ReadingThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am waiting for the Minister. [Interruption] I can see this is a popular call Mr Brownlee.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Transport): I am sorry but the previous speaker Brendan Horan was a cure for insomnia. He certainly had me in a deep trance. I moveThat the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. The bill is a very straightforward response to the pressing need for additional investment in the land transport network. Part 1 amends the Customs and Excise Act 1996 to give effect to the decision to increase the excise and excise-equivalent duty on motor spirits—petrol—by 3c a litre on 1 July 2013 1 July 2014 and 1 July 2015. These increases will provide additional revenue that allows the Government to continue its significant and much-needed investment in the land transport network.Part 2 of the bill makes consequential amendments to the regulations to increase the rate at which duties are refunded to people using petrol for off-road commercial or other purposes that entitle them to a refund. That would particularly apply to the agricultural sector and also some parts of the tourism sector. Road-user charges or RUC will also increase on these dates by an equivalent amount. The mechanism for increasing road-user charges is by Order in Council so it will be done separately from this bill. The increase in excise duty on petrol will raise approximately $90 million in the year 2013-14 and road-user charge increases will raise around $70 million. Thiswill mean an additional $500 million will be spent on the current National Land Transport Programme 2012-15.All the money collected from these revenue sources is spent on the roads. In particular the increase will assist in developing the State highway network which is crucial in assisting economic growth and enabling greater productivity from the transport network. Specifically the increases will allow the New Zealand Transport Agency to begin work on four projects in the 2013-14 financial year: the Rangiriri Tamahere-Cambridge sections of the Waikato Expressway the MacKays to Peka Peka section of the Wellington Northern Corridor and the four-laning of The Groynes to Sawyers Arms Road and the Johns Road section of the Christchurch Western Corridor. All of these are subject of course to regulatory consents.The Government is committed to delivering the roads of national significance programme in a timely fashion without placing excessive costs on motorists. By announcing these cost increases as we did in December of last year we have given time for motorists to prepare for the increases. The additional cost of travelling 14000 kilometres per year which is the average annual distance that is travelled by a New Zealand petrol vehicle with average fuel efficiency of 10 litres per 100 kilometres is around $45 a year.Duties on petrol can sometimes be changed by Order in Council as we did with the increase last year. However the legislation that allows this does not permit the mechanism to be used to increase duty in three consecutive years. Given the huge benefits that New Zealanders will gain from the increase in land transport expenditure it is important that this bill is passed before 1 July 2013. In addition the increases in duties are relatively small in the context of the price of petrol and other vehicle costs. The Automobile Association estimates that the average annual cost of running a compact petrol vehicle is about $3300 per year. The excise increase in this bill proposed from 1 July 2013 will increase that amount by 1.4 percent. As I said before I also signalled these increases in December 2012 to give motorists advance warning that costs would increase.It is worth noting two things. Firstly these increases mean that in the time of this Government the increases overall have been comparable to if not slightly less than the previous Government’s record over the same period of time. It is worth noting that the time savings that thousands of motorists are making in their journeys often daily does add to the fuel efficiency bonus that comes from having good roads.In closing by passing this bill Parliament will ensure that Government can respond to the pressing need to progress significant investments in New Zealand’s transport network. I commend the bill to the House.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Back before the 2008 election when John Key and other National candidates and MPs went around the country campaigning to form the next Government they told New Zealanders that they were going to bring down taxes. That is what they said. They were going to bring down taxes they were going to lower costs for New Zealanders and the Labour Government was taking far too much tax off them. Of course what they meant—what they really meant—was that they were going to reduce personal tax rates for their mates and put up costs for everybody else.Of course what they did not tell New Zealanders was the whole range of ways that they were going to increase taxes and increase costs for New Zealanders. They did not tell them that early childhood education fees were going to increase by nearly 20 percent under the National-led Government. They did not tell New Zealand families that the so-called voluntary donations to primary schools and secondary schools were going to increase by 31 percent under the National-led Government. They did not tell studentsand graduates that they were going to put a $50 to $60 levy on all student loans. No they did not tell them about that tax increase.They certainly did not tell New Zealanders that the ACC work account was going to be increased by 67 percent or that the earners account was going to be increased by 23 percent or that the motor vehicle account was going to be increased by 31 percent. They did not tell New Zealanders that they were going to take away their KiwiSaver tax credit which is effectively a tax increase. They certainly did not tell New Zealanders that they were going to allow general practitioners’ fees to increase—actually hang on they did kind of signal that one. They did signal that one because remember John Key’s idea about the primary health sector: it is a market. “Frankly it’s a market.” he said. So they did kind of signal that they were going to allow costs for people to go and see their doctor to increase. They did not tell New Zealanders that they were going to increase prescription fees from $3 to $5 per prescription and they did not tell New Zealanders that—David Bennett: Stick to the bill.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —there was going to be an overall increase in fuel excise tax David Bennett of 18.8 percent over the period of time that this Government has been in power.What are all those tax increases and cost increases all about? They are about getting this Government just squeaking over the line to surplus in 2014-15. That is what this tax increase is really about. It is about the fact that the Government made a promise that it would get New Zealand back into surplus and because of its failure to get the economy working again it has had to go and find every single little penny down the back of the couch to try to get New Zealand back into surplus. That is what this tax increase that this Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill—Brendan Horan: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I noticed the honourable David Bennett masticating what appears to be gum with his mouth wide open—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): That is irrelevant. The member will sit down. That is just interrupting the flow of the debate and it is unacceptable. We will not have any of that.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Look this is what John Key said. He said: “National is not going to be raising GST.”—not going to be raising GST. “National wants to cut taxes not raise taxes.” John Key said that back in 2008. Well it has been proven to be patently untrue.But what is this all about? The Minister of Transport would have us believe that what this is about is making sure there is enough money to build his roads of national significance. We do know that National is absolutely obsessed not with roads—not with roads because local roads suffer under a National Government—but with its gigantic holiday highways. That is what National is obsessed with. Actually if there was some truth to what the Minister said about what this bill is for that is what it is for.Why is it that National is so obsessed with these massive giant gold-plated holiday highways? Well there is actually a good book about what this is all about and it is calledThe Hollow Men. All we have to do is refer to some of those well-known emails—Don Brash’s email loop—and some of the ideas behind what this focus on highways is all about. An email was sent to Dr Brash and Maurice Williamson from a long-time supporter of ACT and now of National who thought that a National Party policy to dedicate all revenue from taxes at the petrol pump to roading would be a great platform for getting the support of the country: “I actually think the surpluses should be returned to those who pay them but the policy outlined above will get the support of the masses and that is the first priority.” So it was not about building an integrated growth-focused transport network across the country—no that is not what it is about. It is allabout politics—it is all about politics. That is why National is obsessed with these highways.Again in another email Bryan Sinclair forwarded the letter to Brash and others saying: “I hate to revisit this issue and I know the fiscal and political issue surrounding this sort of commitment but I really do agree with the substance ... in terms of vote winning.”—in terms of vote winning or another way of putting it vote buying. “He proposed they have a policy saying ‘National will within 5 years of becoming Government apply all petrol tax revenue raised٭solely٭ to roading and transport infrastructure across New Zealand.’ ” So this is all about politics. I get it—I get it. That is why National likes these highways so much—because an integrated transport network that is focused on growth is not exactly the best way to buy votes. What people like to see are nice tangible pieces of infrastructure that they can see and that they can use. That is what makes people feel good. That is what makes people like David Bennett feel good and what makes Mike Sabin feel good because they can point to it and they can say: “We did that. We did that.” That is what this is all about.Compare that with coastal shipping. The benefits of investing in coastal shipping are that you get better allocation of capital because you can make better use of the capital investment in roads and rail by taking some of the congestion off roads and rail and putting it on coasting shipping. Coastal shipping is far more environmentally positive because the emissions from coastal shipping per tonne per kilometre are far lower than they are from road or rail. That is actually a more effective use of taxpayers’ money but you cannot see it you cannot feel it. Voters do not see the ships going up and down the coastline in the same way that they see highways being built so National does not like it. It might make economic sense it might be growth-focused it might be environmentally focused it might be the best use of the resources we have in our transport budget and it might be a more sensible allocation of capital but National does not like it because the politics do not stack up even if the economic argument stacks up.This National Government is very very good at saying no. It has said no to Auckland which has come up with a positive integrated plan for its transport network. Instead of working with the Auckland Council the Government has decided to go war with the Auckland Council. Before they had even had a conversation about what is the right mix of infrastructure to build and the right mix of revenue to raise the money needed to build that infrastructure the Government has just said “No no no.” and ruled it all out without even having a conversation with Len Brown or his team.It is very good at saying no to rail. It just does not believe in it. It does not want to see rail being used as an important part of an integrated transport structure.Hon Gerry Brownlee: We’re spending a fortune on it. What a silly statement.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The truth is Gerry Brownlee that 90 percent of the transport budget is spent on roads and 7 percent is spent on rail. This Government does not believe in rail it is not supporting rail and it never will support rail because the backers of rail are not the financial backers of the National Party in the same way that road transport users are.National is very good at saying no to anything in the transport network that reduces emissions and improves New Zealand’s impact on the environment. That is what this Government is about. It is about saying no to an integrated transport network it is about saying no to proper capital allocation and it is about saying no to a growth agenda. It is about saying yes to political expediency and the transport infrastructure that is most likely to buy votes. That is why New Zealanders’ taxes are going up under National and that is why the costs to New Zealand families are going up under National. That is not what it promised but of course broken promises are exactly what we have come to expect from this National Government.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): That was the worst speech I have ever heard from a Labour Party spokesperson on transport. You know they are in trouble when they talk aboutThe Hollow Men and then they have to refer to their notes for 7 minutes out of the 10. I was actually very disappointed that Julie Anne Genter was not in the Chamber for the start of that speech but then she came in. I knew when she came in that the real spokesperson on transport for the left had come in. Julie Anne Genter should be leading off this debate for the left not Iain Lees-Galloway. Iain Lees-Galloway does not know what he is talking about. What money comes into transport goes out so this money is being spent on transport initiatives and it is not all about roads. Look at the KiwiRail Turnaround Plan; there is money in the Budget for that. Those members are being disingenuous and—Denise Roche: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was just wondering whether the person who is speaking at the moment would get to the point about the bill. We have not heard it yet.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Look that is another example of interrupting the flow of the debate. I am the judge of that.DAVID BENNETT: I do not actually mind being interrupted by Denise Roche because Denise Roche knows that the Labour Party is in trouble. Julie Anne Genter will not interrupt because it is about her taking over from Iain Lees-Galloway on these issues. She will be taking over from Iain Lees-Galloway because he is just another example of the weak meek Labour Party which sits across from us here today and it is wrong. It is absolutely wrong. The money that has been coming into transport is being spent on transport and it goes to rail as well as roads and it goes to local roads as well as State highways. There is money for all in there.I want to see Mr Iain Lees-Galloway come to Hamilton. In the next year he will be summoned to Hamilton with his leader Mr Shearer if Mr Shearer is still the leader then. They will have to meet the mayor Mr Gallagher one of their ex-colleagues and they will have to explain their lack of funding for the Waikato Expressway. And I bet you—I bet you—they will come to Hamilton and they will have all the fanfare. They will come up there and they will meet with those people. They will go into the room and they will say: “Look we can’t say anything in public. We just can’t say it in public but we will actually do it. We will actually do it but we can’t say it in public.”Hon Gerry Brownlee: Julie Anne won’t let them.DAVID BENNETT: But Julie Anne will not let them. That is right. And that is the problem that they are going to have. Once they say that one new road of national significance—which the Waikato Expressway is and it is a good road—is right the whole thing falls over. Their arguments fall over and Julie Anne Genter will have you for dinner.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Point of order—DAVID BENNETT: That is—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Point of order. [Interruption] Sit down. Point of order Brendon Horan.Brendan Horan: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I understand that it is a little informal but is it the practice of this House to call members by their first name when that member never interjected?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Look if the member brings frivolous points of order I will be asking him to leave. I am the judge of that. I am calling David Bennett.DAVID BENNETT: I have said enough.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): Well here we are. It is just after 20 past 11 on Saturday morning and—Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Just after morning tea time.GRANT ROBERTSON: Oh Jonathan Coleman is back on it again. Talk to Gerry Brownlee the man next to you Jonathan; do not talk to me. It is 20 past 11—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No full name.GRANT ROBERTSON: Sorry. Jonathan Coleman talk to the man next to you; do not talk to me. It is just after 20 past 11 on a Saturday morning and we finally get to some actual Budget legislation from this Government as opposed to its shoving bills through under urgency to make up for the mistakes it has made. Just briefly I refer members on the other side of the House to Professor Andrew Geddis’ blog which was written last night entitled “I think National just broke our constitution”. That is what we have been through over the last few nights in this House.This bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill is about one thing and one thing only. It is about raising taxes this year next year and the year after in order to do a fiddle and a fudge to get the Government to its wafer-thin surplus—that is it. It is nothing more than politics. It is nothing more than taking money out of the pockets of New Zealanders so that National can achieve its political goal of getting to that wafer-thin surplus. There is so much contortion in this Budget for the Government to find its way to its surplus you know that the Barnum and Bailey circus is on the phone—it wants Bill English in there. That is what the Government is doing. It is shifting the money around to make it look like there is a surplus and the reality is that it is doing that by fudging this particular bill.It is very important I think to make sure that we echo the point that has been made earlier by Iain Lees-Galloway. This bill and the other Budget legislation is about shifting the burden of debt away from the Government and on to ordinary New Zealanders. That is what this Budget is about. The Government can try to claim this surplus—a surplus I might add that will disappear into thin air with one back-down. We saw it last year with the class sizes. It had to back down and that was it—the surplus was gone. It is that wafer-thin that it could go with one Hekia Parata back-down. A brain fade from John Key and it is all over—there is no more surplus—and the Government has got there only off the backs of ordinary New Zealanders. Once again this is the pattern of this Government. It is fiddling and fudging the books to make it look like it is delivering its political goal of a surplus and in reality taking that money away from New Zealanders.This Government’s record on tax legislation deserves some analysis. Iain Lees-Galloway has already talked about the promises that were made up and down the country by John Key and other National MPs about the fact that they would not be raising taxes; they would be cutting taxes. Well National came in and it cut some taxes. That is absolutely true—40 percent of those tax cuts went to the top 10 percent of New Zealanders. That is the first fudge. That is the first broken promise. The broken promise—apparently the tax cuts John Key said were going to be all about the middle class. No they were not; they were about John Key’s mates. That was the first problem.But what followed from there—what followed from there—was a pattern of consistent tax increases that affected ordinary New Zealanders. GST—up under this Government. Who is affected the most by an increase in GST? People on low and modest incomes who spend a higher percentage of their income on the basics of life. They are the people who are affected. That was a tax increase from this Government. Then we have seen consistently overcharging on ACC. Time after time ACC has been used in classic Nick Smith fashion to manufacture a crisis ramp up the levies use that to fudge the books and then he will bring them down and say that he has saved everything—a classic Nick Smith response. Then as Iain Lees-Galloway has said we have seen a 20 percent increase in early childhood education costs prescription fees going up repayment rates on student loans—all of these are tax increases just as thisbill is today. And just as this bill does today it shifts the burden on to ordinary hard-working New Zealanders who are already stretched.But one thing that has come out of the last few days too is the way in which National is starting to manipulate this Budget around to try to shift a bit of blame. I have had people from Christchurch calling through to me disgusted by the comments they have seen from both Gerry Brownlee and John Key about shifting the burden. John Key went on television and said: “New Zealanders right across the country actually [have] to go without so that money can go into Christchurch as a priority.” That is what John Key said to New Zealanders. That is a disgraceful way to treat the people of Canterbury who have been through so much to suddenly use them as a pawn in the Government’s game about getting back to this wafer-thin surplus. And I am also told that Gerry Brownlee went on the radio in Christchurch and said that State-owned enterprise sales were needed to fund the rebuild of Christchurch. So once again Christchurch gets the blame because this Government is so bereft of ideas that all it can come up with is to sell off the assets and hike up taxes and ACC levies to get itself to its wafer-thin political surplus. That is not good enough. The people of Christchurch deserve far far better than to be used as a pawn in the National Government’s political game. Gerry Brownlee and John Key need to know that the people of Christchurch are disgusted and appalled by that kind of treatment.But if we look at this bill in the context of this overall Budget it is definitely a fudge and a fix to get into surplus. Also in the Budget are massive contingencies—contingencies in the education budget that we have not seen for a very very long time. Once again the Government is manipulating the money. I think of that actually as a failure of leadership by the Minister of Education. She should be laying out a clear plan on education spending but instead that education budget is being used along with this petrol tax hike to give the impression that this Government is doing something about getting New Zealand’s books in order. The way that this Government has gone about this Budget in my view is a hoax on New Zealanders. It is a sham of a surplus. This is not the kind of bill that should be coming to this House in this way in a Budget setting because this Government told New Zealanders time and time again that it would not be increasing their taxes and yet this year next year and the year after this bill will increase petrol taxes.It is useful to refer to the regulatory impact statement because what that tells us is that the—[Interruption] See there is a regulatory impact statement for this one. The Minister is to be credited for doing better than his colleagues in the National Government who have failed to produce a regulatory impact statement. But when you actually look at the regulatory impact statement yes it is a 3c a litre increase over those years. That represents the best part of a 6 percent increase every year in the price of petrol caused by this Government. This Government did not talk about this. When Bill English stood up he did not talk about this. He did not say: “I am acknowledging I am doing this. I am putting up taxes. I am breaking the promises that John Key has made to New Zealanders.” Instead here we are on a Saturday morning with National shoving this bill through under urgency. Well it is time New Zealanders heard the truth about this. This Government has fudged and fiddled with the numbers in this Budget to give the impression that it is getting back to surplus. That is being done off the back of hard-working New Zealanders.This bill is a continuation of this Government’s approach: to tinker with the economy to get short-term gain. We will come back in later calls to the question of the transport funding but let us not be under any illusion. This is a Government that is prepared to see a two-speed economy where vested interests and speculators get ahead and where exporters and manufacturers and ordinary New Zealanders are left behind. That is thelesson of this Budget. We will have a two-speed economy where National’s mates get ahead and ordinary New Zealanders are taxed more have to pay more and get worse services. This bill is an emblem of this Government’s failure to grow a sustainable economy and a failure to create jobs. It has to put up petrol taxes just to get to its wafer-thin surplus.JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I rise to take a call on the—Hon Member: What’s it called?JULIE ANNE GENTER: —bill that raises petrol taxes the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. This bill raises petrol taxes. Why does National need to put up the petrol tax? It is essentially for two reasons. The first reason and I think this is a reason—[Interruption] Oh I have got a copy thank you Minister Brownlee—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I would actually like to hear what the member is saying so please give her that courtesy.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We just want to know whether she knows which bill she is talking about.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sure she does.JULIE ANNE GENTER: Actually I was very busy reading the regulatory impact statement which we just got on this bill so I did not have the title right in front of me but it is very clear what this bill does. What it does is put up the petrol tax. So why does National need to put up the petrol tax? Firstly it is because people are driving less. They have been driving less since before 2006 and this is very clear in New Zealand Transport Agency data. It shows that the number of vehicles on State highways are down. Vehicle volumes on State highways have been declining and the population has been increasing so that means per capita vehicle kilometres travelled are way down. This is a trend that we have seen all around OECD countries. It is not that surprising. But unfortunately it has not yet been reflected in the Government’s transport funding priorities.The second reason the Government has to put up the petrol tax is that it has mismanaged the transport budget. This is really clear in the regulatory impact statement which says that the priorities that the Government has set specifically for the roads of so-called national significance which are really just three very big very expensive motorway projects that all have benefit to cost ratios of around 1 or less than 1—really only 1 if you exaggerate the benefits. So it has got this huge commitment to building motorways at a time when traffic is declining and people are driving less.This pie chart shows the Government’s budget for new capital investment in infrastructure over the next 3 years. The purple bit is all on new State highways—and of course it is on only the three new State highways which are extremely expensive and have a low benefit to cost ratio. There is a tiny little slice going into local roads so who is going to pick up the tab for local roads? Well it is not road users; it is ratepayers. Road users do not pay directly for capital investment in new roads. If they did we would not be able to fund them. If users of Transmission Gully or the Waikato Expressway were asked to pay directly for the billions of dollars that are going to be put into those projects it would never cover the cost of building those projects. That is why the Government has had to put up the petrol tax.Essentially although we hear it a lot from the Government that roads are user-pays that is not the reality. The reality is that new capital expenditure is funded by users of roads everywhere in the country through marginal increases in petrol tax. That means that the use of the road does not necessarily reflect the cost of it because people do not pay for it directly. Secondly more than 50 percent of all vehicle trips travelled are on local roads. This is data that came through in an Official Information Act request to theMinister of Transport. The Government should know that more than half of all vehicle trips are happening on local roads and local roads are half-funded by ratepayers not directly by road users.So at the moment what we have is a highly vehicle-dependent transport system. That transport system forces us to spend billions of dollars actually increasing our current account deficit because we are importing oil which has become much more expensive. Over the last 10 years oil prices have doubled—they have doubled in the last decade—and for that reason even though we are not importing any more oil and people are driving less we are paying twice as much for it.You would think that if the National Government was concerned about “New Zealand Inc.” it would care about reducing our current account deficit and would see that there is an opportunity to reduce our current account deficit by reducing our reliance on very expensive imported oil. But obviously it does not because what it is doing is prioritising all of the spending in the transport budget on projects that do not give New Zealanders choices. They do not give New Zealanders the choice to save money on oil by taking public transport by walking or cycling or by letting their kids walk and cycle safely to school. That is a very cost-effective opportunity not only to reduce congestion but to allow people to get around to the places they need to go without having to fork out for expensive imported oil and also having to pay more on petrol taxes.Saying that you have to spend all of the petrol tax or road-user charges on new roads is like saying that the alcohol tax should be used to build new bars. It is ridiculous. What we need to do is balance—rebalance—our transport system.What the Green Party would say is that not all taxes are bad. It is important to distinguish between two types of taxes. There are taxes that are just for raising revenue. You can tax employment you can tax income but those are good things. Why would we want to tax good things? We do not want to tax good things just for the purpose of raising revenue. The Green Party’s tax policies would like to see a shift—and this is best-practice economics which I know no one in the National Party has ever been exposed to. If you readThe Economist for example it was saying that higher petrol taxes are a great way to tax away vulnerability. Basically we know petrol is going to be getting more expensive. We know that it is polluting. We know that we have passed 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and that that is a major problem for humanity—and you know you would hope that those members would care about the future of humanity.So there is an imperative that we reduce our consumption of fossil fuel and transport is a real opportunity to do that in a win-win way so people can spend less money on getting around. That is good for the economy. We would have less carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere which is good because it means humanity can continue to survive for generations into the future and have a high quality of life. So it is imperative that we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels for economic reasons and so that we can survive as a species. Transport offers us this great opportunity.So the Green Party can support a slow moderated increase to the petrol tax as part of a way of enabling our transport system and our economy to become more resilient and less dependent on fossil fuels. Unfortunately the projects that the National Government is prioritising are simply the worst way you could possibly invest in the future of transport right now in 2013. I cannot think of a worse way.We have got all the data that shows us that new roads have diminishing marginal returns. They are not opening up new links to new areas; they are in places where we already have road links. The best use of our money is going to be using our existing road network smarter using it better. Part of that is investing in the complementaryalternatives to the road—which are our rail network which has been severely underinvested in for many many years; coastal shipping; and in our towns and cities safe walking and cycling for children and adults who would like to be able to get around without having to jump in their car and spend a ton of money on petrol—and investing in public transport where it makes sense. It does make a lot of economic sense once you take a broader perspective on the benefits.It is really essential that New Zealanders have choice and this Government is not giving them choice. What it is doing is putting up the petrol tax and then putting all of the money into projects many of them will not even use on a daily basis. You know the percentage of vehicle trips on Transmission Gully will be less than on many arterial roads in Auckland so it will be the Aucklanders who are sitting in traffic because the Government has refused to fund the city rail link and other smart options who will be paying the fuel taxes that will be paying back the loan on Transmission Gully which is going to serve only about 10000 people a day. The rail network in Auckland currently carries 45000 people a day on weekdays and with the city rail link it could carry twice that many people. It could take the equivalent of 12 motorway lanes of traffic off the roads and certainly that is a good use of road users’ money if ever there was one.So what this Government is doing is extremely short-sighted and irresponsible. It is not going to give us a resilient transport system. It is not going to protect the economy from high oil prices. It leaves us in an oil-dependent situation which is going to worsen our current account deficit which is bad for the economy. Thank you.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): I would like to acknowledge and thank the member from the Green Party Julie Anne Genter who has just resumed her seat—the member who can see Russia from her kitchen window. It is ironic that she comes from a country that has more roads than just about anywhere else but comes here and says we should all hop on a loopedy-loop rail loop—Simon O’Connor: Fruit loop.MIKE SABIN: —or fruit loop yes or fruit loop—and ride unicycles and carry logs to market on unicycles. What we have heard is another good example of the loony left and what it does is it helps to provide contrast to the sensible work that this Government is doing. What we have here is a Minister Gerry Brownlee who is not only rebuilding Christchurch but is rebuilding New Zealand’s roading network. Parties like that like to talk about it but actually put no investment into it. This bill goes to the heart of making sure that that can be achieved.Iain Lees-Galloway—I picked up on his speech—David Bennett: Who?MIKE SABIN: Iain Lees-Galloway.David Bennett: Who’s he?MIKE SABIN: Well I am not sure but I think that was his name. He was talking about that State highway the Pūhoi motorway. This is the favourite of the left the poverty whipping boy of Northland. Those members go up there have fish and chips at the Mangonui fish and chip shop have a few photo shots and then come back down here and talk about getting rid of that road—the road that they call the “Holiday Highway” which infuriates everyone in Northland. Sure some holidaymakers do use that road but so does $800 million of the Northland economy making its way through to Auckland. So whenever the Labour Party makes mention of that—and maybe it is not popular with everybody. I think there are actually three people in Auckland who do not think that the Pūhoi to Wellsford motorway is a good idea: the three Labour Party supporters in Auckland. Actually to be fair I think one of them may be a Mana Party supporter. I am not too sure; they sort of cross over a little bit. This is a sensible bill andit provides for the financial infrastructure that will help us build our roading infrastructure. I commend it to the House.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. In so doing I send greetings to people around New Zealand. In particular I send greetings to the people of Dipton where Bill English’s holiday home is located. I send greetings to you in the knowledge that on 1 July in Dipton you will be paying another 3c a litre to pay for the roads of national significance—most of which are north of Taupō. I send greetings to the people of Bluff to the people of Hokitika to the people of Nelson. I send greetings to the people of Waipukurau my old home town and to the people of Gisborne who do not have a rail connection any more. I send greetings to the people of the East Coast who no longer have a rail connection.I also particularly send greetings to the people of Pipiwai up in Northland who have experienced dust problems on their local roads. The people of Pipiwai have suffered incredible dust problems up there because this Government sees more importance in its select few roads of national significance. It sees more importance in its select few roads of national significance than in the people of Pipiwai who have to put up with dust day in day out year in year out because this Government has cut the subsidies to rural regional New Zealand. Rural regional New Zealand is the area that is suffering from this Government. I am the spokesman for local government for New Zealand First. We are hearing constantly from local authorities and from people around New Zealand that their local roads their local rural roads their local regional roads are going backwards because this Government is putting all the focus on its select few roads of national significance.I would like to draw everyone’s attention to the statement made by Gerry Brownlee in his press statement on 18 December 2012 when it was first announced that these 3c per litre excise tax increases would be starting as of 1 July this year with another 3c increase on 1 July 2014 and another 3c increase on 1 July 2015. Gerry Brownlee Minister of Transport said: “The series of July increases will also ready the [National Land Transport] Fund for investment in upper North Island transport projects beyond the RoNS programme.” So Mr Brownlee stated in December that these increases starting this coming month are basically to provide for the investment in the upper North Island transport projects beyond the roads of national significance.Again I say to the people of Dipton to the people of Bluff to the people of Hokitika to the people of Nelson to the people of Waipukurau and to the people up in Pipiwai that I hope that they are happy that in a month’s time when their fuel goes up by 3c a litre they will be paying for the benefit of a select area of New Zealand the upper North Island while the rest of New Zealand basically suffers. That is not good enough. That is not good enough. We all live in one country. We are all New Zealanders. We all deserve to have a fair share of what is available and we all deserve to be treated fairly. What this Government is doing is selecting specific areas where it sees the most votes where it sees the most opportunities and where it sees the best return for itself.Why is it that we are having to have these 3c increases this year next year and the year after? Well partly it is because a couple of years ago this same Government slashed nearly $2 billion off the income taxes of the top 10 percent of earners in this country. The top 10 percent of earners in this country received significant income tax cuts. Mr John Key himself got $1000 extra back as a result of the tax cuts. The big tall Scotsman who was running Telecom Paul Reynolds who was on many millions of dollars per year received $5000 a week of tax cuts—$5000 a week of tax cuts—from those tax cuts that National put through a couple of years ago.So all the high rollers all the wealthy people have all seen some very significant improvements in their own personal wealth—including all the Ministers on a quarter of a million dollars a year—with a significant reduction in their tax. Meanwhile everyday good honest hard-working New Zealanders are going to be asked to spend as of 1 July this year another 3c a litre to fill up their tanks as of next year another 3c and the year after another 3c. So basically while the likes of the Hon John Banks cruises around in his Bentley in Auckland while the Ministers cruise around in their big Crown BMW 7 Series and take their tax cuts and while Mr Key is taking his $1000 a week good New Zealanders will be paying for the pleasure of that.It is very interesting that the current excise tax on fuel according to the Automobile Association is 61.129c per litre of fuel—that is the amount of tax: 61.129c on every litre of fuel. The Government is already getting a pretty jolly good share. When you are paying say $2.10 a litre you take off 61c. You already know that 61c of that is going to the Government. It is getting a fair amount of money and now it is going to add another 9c a litre—by the end of another 3 years another 9c a litre. It is incredible.Is it not interesting that it has to do this to help balance its Budget to help try to find some sort of margin-of-error surplus in 2014-15 which is going to be only in the order of something around $100 million? Imagine if the Government did not have this—and it says it is going to get an extra $90 million a year from these 3c increases to start with. Basically it would be in the red. It would be in the red. So basically you have to be a little bit sceptical and say: “Well did they do their budgets? Did they do all their figuring? Did they do all their sums? Did they work out all the various things?”. Then you would go: “My goodness! We’re going to be in the red if we don’t find some more money.” The Government said: “Where do we find some more money from the good average everyday hard-working New Zealanders? Ah! Let’s get it from their pockets. Let’s put it through the petrol bowser. Let’s take another 9c a litre by 2015-16 and let’s try to balance the books with some more money out of petrol.”This is a very disappointing thing for the average New Zealander. Average New Zealanders are being stung at the moment with higher electricity prices and they will see even higher electricity prices as a result of the sale of Mighty River Power. When Meridian Energy is put on the block and is sold off average New Zealanders are going to be paying more for their everyday vital necessities of life. They are paying far more in Auckland for their water as a result of this Government creating a super-city. New Zealanders are paying far more for their electricity and they are going to be paying far more for their petrol. Basically this is a miserable Budget which once again the good average everyday New Zealander suffers from.But meanwhile the fat cats—and we saw the Rt Hon Winston Peters here the other day with the mouse. The mouse might come out again this afternoon if this keeps going—it might come out again. The Rt Hon Winston Peters said the poor average New Zealander is on the treadmill trying to make things better but every time he goes forward the treadmill keeps coming back at him. He cannot ever make any progress because under this Government the good average New Zealander continues to have his everyday wage taken away from him. This latest fuel tax is just the latest poor poor effort by this Government to try to balance the books. New Zealand First will not be supporting this.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): Well goodness me! One would have thought that Andrew Williams the member who has just sat down could probably have done a little bit better. It happens on a Saturday in urgency that people start to filibuster. Normally filibuster is amusing or has some point or does not pretend to be anything other than that so I was not quite sure what the point of his speech was. Is he in favour of this transport bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits)Amendment Bill or not? Is he in favour of transport being developed? I suggest the general public would be far more impressed if we gave this type of legislation the significance in our speeches that it deserves. Transport is crucial to building our economic momentum. It is important it is significant and indeed it is vital. We should pass this bill.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): Here we are in the dead of morning and it may be that there are only about five New Zealanders outside the people in this Chamber listening to this debate but for the record that is deliberate on the part of this Government. An interesting thing colleagues is that this debate was originally to be scheduled by the Government for the start of the urgency motion. At the last minute the order was changed because some genius in the Government whips’ office worked out the truth which is that if the public hears this debate they will work out that the Government has staked its political reputation on one of the most monumental lies in political history which is getting back to surplus. How often have we heard that? “We are going to get back to surplus. We are going to get the Government’s books in the black.” Well that is the colossal lie about this Budget: there is no surplus. The Government called it wafer-thin—$75 million in 2014 off a Budget of $84 billion. That is a margin of 1/1000th of the total spend.And do you know what? By a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation I am going to point to $3 billion worth of porkies bulldust and blather that get the Government to that line—$3 billion. Here is the list. We are here to talk about an excise bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. This excise bill puts petrol taxes up for hard-pressed New Zealand families by 9c a litre. That is 9c a litre that ordinary Kiwis can barely afford and that rakes in—wait for it—$7 billion extra over 10 years. That is $7 billion out of Kiwis’ pockets to try to help the Government balance its bogus Budget.But you see it does not get there without a whole lot of other things. Regarding ACC officials told the Government to give back to hard-working New Zealanders in 2014-15 $700 million worth of overcharges. Did it do that? No. It is not doing that. It has put that off until the following year and it is banking the $700 million of New Zealanders’ money so that it can get its wafer-thin bogus Budget over the line. It does not get there without cutting the forecast expenditure track by $200 million in that year. It does not get there without an extraordinary bunch of tax fiddles.I want to just draw the House’s attention to this worthy document. It is called the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update or the BEFU—a lovely name. On page 30 of it are the tax-flow assumptions. Guess what happens in the forecast 2014 year? A magic $400 million worth of tax credits occurs out of nowhere for that year only—$400 million is magicked as if by fairy dust. There is $1.1 billion worth of extra corporate tax that magics its way into the Budget for that year only before falling to $200 million the year after. And $1.1 billion of extra PAYE and employee tax falls from the sky in that year only before falling away again. It is an extraordinary conjuring trick. This Budget is not worth the paper it is printed on. There is no surplus. What there is is $3 billion worth of bogus numbers that are a conjuring trick that this Government should be ashamed of.The Budget does not get there without for example promising business research and development tax cuts. Well that is playing catch-up with Labour. We promised that in the last election. We costed ours. From memory it was about $300 million. The Government has put it in the Budget but there is nothing in the books. There is not one cent in the forward expenditure track for its research and development tax cut promise—not one cent. Mr Dunne a couple of weeks ago announced $1.5 billion for the research and development computer system. I do not know how you spend $1.5 billionon a computer system but guess what? Not one dollar is in this Budget for a $1.5 billion computer system—not one dollar colleagues.This Budget is a sham. There is no surplus because in about 7 minutes I have been able to reel off over $3 billion worth of porkies misprints favourable assumptions and money spreading. Those backbenchers did not get told that in caucus you can bet that. They are lambs to the slaughter in the National Government and there is a very large shepherd right out in front.Let us just suppose that the Budget did balance. Let us just suppose it really did get into the black. Would that be the be-all and end-all for New Zealanders? Would that make a million flowers bloom? Would that get 270000 children out of poverty? Would that get our inflation rate down? Would that get our unemployment rate down? The answer is no because guess what? Nobody has told Bill English it is not his job just to balance the Government’s books; it is to balance the country’s books. These people are balancing their books at the expense of your books New Zealanders—not you Mr Assistant Speaker but their books. The Government is taking money out of the wallets of Kiwis putting it in the Treasury coffers and calling it a surplus when it is not—when it is not.Mike Sabin: “I have a dream.”Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Oh Brook Sabin’s been having dreams. I wonder what kind of dreams—Mike Sabin sorry. He is almost as good-looking as his son but not quite. All I am hoping is that it proves that there are enough synapses between his ears to actually fire up and create a dream and that is very good.But coming back to the point if this Budget did balance and if the Government had a strategy to grow the economy which it does not then we would still be left with a third question: is it putting people first? Does this economy serve New Zealanders or do Government members see New Zealanders as pawns and peons to serve a magic economy? They have got it the wrong way round. They trumpeted this Budget as a social equity Budget. How ironic is that? They said: “Oh this won’t be a typical dry National Party Budget. We’re going to have food in schools. We’re going to have a landlord retail warrant of fitness.” and do you know what? That was absolute window dressing New Zealanders—absolute window dressing. This Budget is as dry as dust. It is a miserly mingy Budget. It is a visionless bore. But the key point today is to remember that there is no surplus. This is a bogus document.It has got $3 billion worth of sham worth of lost money worth of what we can only call porkies. This bill adds 9c over 3 years to ordinary New Zealanders’ petrol bills for every litre that they use. It is part of a series of measures that try to get these clowns to balance their books at the expense of New Zealanders’ books. The saddest part about it is that after all they are putting New Zealanders through they still do not get there. They have to claw away $200 million worth of expenditure from next year. They have to magic up $4.1 billion worth of extra tax flows. They have to hold back $700 million worth of ACC levies that belong to New Zealanders. They have to penny pinch lie and scrounge and they still do not get there. This is a sham. It is a bogus Budget. It is a Budget to be ashamed of and when those backbenchers go and have a thumb through it—of course they never will because they probably cannot read at that level of detail. But if they ever did—[Interruption] David Bennett is happy in his ignorance. You have got to give him that. Some people are ignorant and miserable; David Bennett is happy to be ignorant. He knows he is ignorant. It is like Chris Auchinvole right? He is a man happy in his work. He knows the Budget is a waste of time. He knows—David Bennett: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think the member was using the wrong surname. Were you meaning David Shearer or—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order and will lead to disorder.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: That one has hair—that one has hair.Hon Member: Sensitive flower.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: He is a sensitive flower. The reason that we are here in the dead of morning on a Saturday sharing a few jokes amongst colleagues is that this is a debate that the Government does not want the public to hear. They do not want—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.Dr CAM CALDER (National): He was going quite well until that ad hominem attack at the end mate. David Cunliffe is a man whom I will remember by his rising-from-the-crypt speech—brilliantly delivered theatrical a joy to listen to but all rubbish. It was as rubbish as many of the previous contributions were from the Opposition. Let me just encapsulate the fundamental thought there. This is an excellent Budget. This is an outstanding Budget. We have increased spending in health and education. Let me speak about health. We have increased spending in more heart health checks. The relevance of this is that if the arteries or the vessels of the heart block up the heart stops functioning well and what happens? The body dies. The person dies.Think about the roads. If there are actually blockages in our roads we cannot have the movement of goods and services around the country get to our export markets quickly and the economy slows. This is an intervention. This increase in petrol excise tax and road-user charges will assist with building a better transport system. This is a vital part of the Government’s plan to build a more competitive and productive economy an economy where growth would be stuttering slowing and finally stopped should the crypto-“renationalists” of the Labour Party get into bed with the money printers of the reds and the Greens in the Opposition. I commend this bill to the House.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): This is a Government that seeps hypocrisy at every step of the move. It came in promising New Zealanders that it would reduce taxation. Well it did. It did for the wealthy and it did take off the regional petrol tax on Auckland. Now in urgency this National Government is increasing taxation on every single New Zealander. Why? To pay for the benefits of a few people living north of the Bombay Hills.Auckland is not a bad place if you visit and stay for a short period of time. But can I give a few quotes from Ministers across the other side. “New Zealanders should not be forced to pay twice for road networks given they have already forked out for excise duty on road user charges.”—that was a statement from Gerry Brownlee when he was trying to justify the removal of a regional petrol tax on Auckland. Then we had from Mr Joyce a statement that said that “regional fuel taxes are expensive and inefficient … ”.Well I will tell you what you should do. I want Mr Auchinvole to go to Fox Glacier and tell the people at Fox Glacier that this tax is efficient and beneficial to them and that it is not expensive. I have to say that everywhere outside Auckland will consider that this tax is inefficient unfair hypocritical and in fact unproductive. If we are to listen to the Government’s rhetoric around taxation that any increase in taxation causes a loss of productivity what are we getting from this? Well silence. That is exactly right. We are getting a pay-off and payment for a few infrastructural assets in Auckland and we know Aucklanders need them.But there was a consensus building group that came out with a list of recommendations one of which was a regional petrol tax—no. “No we cannot have a regional petrol tax.” said Mr Joyce. So what we have to do is spread that tax across each and every single New Zealander. What about the people in rural New Zealand? These are the people who have to travel these are the people who do not have any public transport system and these are the people whom that member from Whangarei might remember. The people up there in Whangarei will not be too happy about paying a tax to pay for the infrastructural assets of Aucklanders—I say with all due respect tomy colleagues—that should have been paid for by Aucklanders. The people in the regions the rural New Zealanders who produce the wealth in this country are being forced to pay 9c for every litre of petrol over 3 years—9c. And for what? To pay for “holiday highways” and infrastructural assets.Even a consensus group—this was a group of Aucklanders who came together to say: “How should we pay for our infrastructural assets and our roading?”—arrived at a number of options such as a regional fuel tax higher rates which are not terribly desirable or charging for motorway use. The vast majority of New Zealanders living outside Auckland would say that that is a reasonable challenge and one that should be put up. Well the Government said: “No no no we can’t have people up there paying for their own infrastructure. We will impose a petrol tax of 9c across each and every New Zealander”—the same 9c that was rejected by that Government when it came into office—“for every litre of fuel.”I know what people in Fox Glacier in Collingwood in Fairlie and in Invercargill think about this. Off the back of statements by Mr Brownlee and Mr Joyce about the inefficiency and the expense of this they understand the hypocrisy of what is going on in this House today. This Government removed the tax when it came in to satisfy its mates in Auckland and it now imposes this tax across each and every New Zealander to try to justify as my colleagues say this paper-thin so-called balance in the Crown accounts.This is an outrage and I urge New Zealanders the few who might be watching to go and tell their people—all the people the two-thirds of the population who live outside Auckland—that this National Government is increasing taxes. It is doing it on each and every New Zealander—the vast majority of whom have no alternative other than to pay it. This is unfair. It is inefficient and it is expensive and that is to use the Minister’s—Mr SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. Surprisingly I rise to support this bill—the only bill the Green Party will be supporting under urgency—the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. The interesting thing about this bill is that it is quite possibly the only bill that actually is Budget-related as part of this tranche of Budget urgency this Parliament is considering on Saturday morning.I rise to support this bill but I want to note the strong reservations the Green Party has because although we agree we should have increased transport funding and we think increasing the petrol excise levy is a good signal that is going to help give the Government money to help spend on the right solutions the problem is that what we are not going to see is the right solutions being picked by this Government. What we are going to see is this money being spent on more low-value motorways. In terms of cars they are often described as a dog or a lemon. What we see under this Government is a whole bunch of motorway projects that are both dogs and lemons because they do not even make economic sense—not even to the Government’s own analysis. What we know is that the so-called roads of national significance did not go through any Treasury analysis. They were an election pledge—election bribe. Despite all the expert analysis despite the independent consultant saying that some of these projects had a woeful negative benefit-cost ratio the Government is still ploughing ahead and you can see that head-in-the-sand approach in the regulatory impact statement that says that the objectives of keeping the roads of national significance should be kept.What we are seeing with this legislation is fuel excise taxes going up by 3c over the next 3 years—a 9c increase over 3 years—to carry the declining National Land Transport Fund. I feel sorry for the Minister of Transport Gerry Brownlee because what has happened is that the original minister Steven Joyce had a $20 billion NationalLand Transport Fund which he allocated through theGovernment Policy Statement on Land Transport Funding. He had the pleasure of going around the country talking about launching motorways starting the ball rolling and what he has left Gerry Brownlee with is a dog and a lemon because what he has left him with is not enough money to finish the job. The cupboard is bare because of the $12 billion this Government is wasting on uneconomic motorways which do not even have a strong business case.The Green Party supports spending on infrastructure investment. The Green Party even supports borrowing for infrastructure investment when there is a good business case. But these seven so-called roads of national significance do not even have a strong business case. What we see is the National Land Transport Fund down over $1.6 billion over the next 5 years so now Gerry Brownlee has to go and put nearly $1 billion in extra borrowing on the credit card for these motorways of National Party significance. The problem is of course that over the last 5 years what we have seen is petrol prices up we have seen road volumes down and we have seen public transport patronage growing spectacularly yet the Government still does not give Kiwis options to get around. All it is offering is motorways to get out of Wellington faster and motorways to get north of Auckland faster. There is not that critical investment in our cities where our prosperity and our economic development options are going to be. There is no money in the Budget despite some speculation on The Standard blog that the Government would launch a funding announcement for the central business district rail loop in Auckland. There is no funding for light rail for Wellington. There is no funding for our cities. It is just for the roads of National Party significance roads of trucking significance because trucking is the real beneficiary of these motorways—roads of trucking significance!What we see is bad policy set by the Government and a Minister who has got no money left in the cupboard because Steven Joyce has spent it all. So Gerry Brownlee now has to run off to Parliament to raise the taxes and put it on the credit card but the problem is we are still going to be stuck with these seven motorways. There is a better way and that is what the Green Party is advocating for which is investing in smart transport and a balanced approach. If we actually had a balanced approach to the transport budget there would still be money for the roads. There would still be money for road safety upgrades which we know are being delayed as a result of all the money being poured into these seven roads of National Party significance. We could be spending money on roads. We could be spending money on road safety. We could be spending more money on road policing. All these budget lines have been raided by both Steven Joyce and Gerry Brownlee to pour into these political roads.I think New Zealanders want a smarter option. That is what all the polls are indicating. They want to a central business district rail link for Auckland. They want to have funding powers and regional autonomy to make some of these decisions. They want better buses better trains better walking and cycling and that is what the Green Party is going to keep advocating for. Kia ora.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Look I think the Opposition must still be asleep going by the level of rhetoric and ideology we are hearing. Smart transport I think is sort of walking barefoot uphill both ways. This Government is actually committed to doing what Kiwis want. We know that the spending across a whole range of areas—in road in public transport in trains—is significant and it costs money. So this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill is a prudent attempt by the Government through this piece of legislation to increase the amount of money that we have to invest in roads and across public transport.We have heard all this talk around Auckland—$1.6 billion on the train system $1 billion a year around subsidies for public transport in Auckland $750 million for KiwiRail over 3 years. This—Dr Cam Calder: How much?SIMON O’CONNOR: $750 million over 3 years. This is a Government that is committed to transport and it is a Government committed to transport that Kiwis want. In this way we are prepared to see a small increase over the next 3 years through the use of motor spirits in order to continue ring-fenced funding if you like and basically to continue what we need to do in the roading sphere. I commend this bill to the House.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.Ayes73New Zealand National 59; Green Party 11; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes41New Zealand Labour 33; New Zealand First 7; Independent: Horan.Bill read a first time.Second ReadingHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Transport): I moveThat the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill will enable the Government to respond to the pressing need for additional investment in the land transport system programme. Excise duty on petrol applied at a national level is an efficient way of raising revenue without imposing additional compliance costs on users. Steady increases announced well in advance are a much fairer and more efficient way of increasing revenue for the National Land Transport Fund than alternative methods that the Government has considered such as tolling existing routes or regional fuel tax. In other words what we are saying is that you are far better off having a system that collects the money from the petrol sold and then choosing to spend it appropriately across the roading network. All the money collected from this proposal will be spent on the road network.The three increases of 3c per litre in 2013 2014 and 2015 will generate over $500 million within the current period—2012-15—of the National Land Transport Programme. Over this period the Government will invest a total of $9.5 billion in the land transport network including over $3 billion in the State highway network. Once the current programme is finished the increases will allow further investment beyond the roads of national significance. Local government’s needs for land transport are much greater than ever before and regardless of the particular transport solution those needs will require further expenditure.I would like to point out that the increases as proposed in this bill are in line with past increases. A 3c per litre increase equates to a 5.9 percent rise in the total rate of petrol excise. Previous increases have exceeded that significantly. The previous Government oversaw an 8.5 percent increase in 2002 and a 13.8 percent increase in 2005 with single-digit increases in each of the other years that it was in Government. By proposing three moderate increases of less than 6 percent this Government is ensuring that increasing the moderate payments made by motorists will be affordable while providing enough revenue to complete essential improvements to the national road network.It is worth noting that motorists are already reporting that on some of the roads that have been constructed under the roads of national significance they are saving many minutes often daily and that is a direct benefit not only to motorists but also to the wider economy.I commend this bill to the House.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I hope that the National Party backbenchers were listening closely to their Minister of Transport in that speech and indeed he made the same comments in his first reading speech. Some of those members seemed to be labouring under the misapprehension that the money raised from these extra taxes that will be levied against low and middle income New Zealanders will be used across the transport network. That is absolutely untrue and the Minister has made that clear. This is for roads. In fact it is not even just for roads or for roads broadly; it is specifically for their uneconomic roads of national significance—roads of political significance and roads of vote-buying significance as we found out by referencingThe Hollow Men in the first reading. What is going on here is that the National Party is putting on new taxes and raising taxes on low and middle income New Zealanders.Frankly I am surprised that the Green Party and the Mana party are voting to increase taxes to increase costs for low and middle income New Zealanders. That I think is outrageous. Over here in the Labour Party we just will not wear that. We refuse to support an increase in taxes on low and middle income New Zealanders for transport infrastructure that simply does not stack up economically. There is a range of different—[Interruption] I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have a point of order which will be heard in silence.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I can barely hear myself over David Bennett. I do not mind if he wants to interject on me. He is quite fond of it. But if he could just calm down a little bit that would be helpful.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The point is well made. The noise was coming from both sides of the House. Would the member please continue.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Thank you very much Mr Speaker. The fact is that there are a number of different aspects to a growth-focused transport network in New Zealand. Local roads are important. Highways in some places where appropriate are important. Rail is important. Public transport whether it be urban rail or buses is important too and so is active transport. Cycling and walking are both important as well. We need infrastructure to support all those modes of transport but all this Government is focused on is the roads of national significance.What we know is that when a Government builds more roads in order to relieve congestion that is simply buying time. It is not a solution. It might last a few years but in time all we will get is more cars on those roads and in fact we will end up exactly where we started from with the congestion that we had before. An investment in a diverse and integrated transport network would see people moving from being single occupants in cars travelling to work and back home again to using public transport if the investment was there to make sure the public transport available was reliable regular and fitted in with people’s lives. But this Government is not interested in investing in that type of public transport.We would see freight taken off the road and relieving congestion both for freight carriers and for car drivers if we saw more freight moving on to rail and on to coastal shipping. These are appropriate methods of moving freight around the country. Sometimes freight needs to be moved on a road. Sometimes freight needs to be moved on rail. Sometimes freight needs to be moved by coastal shipping. There are different time-dependencies and there are different types of freight. What this Government is not doing is building a transport network that responds to the different needs of different users different types of freight and different time-dependencies. It is investing everything into roads. Actually what it is doing is overcapitalising in the roading network when what would be a smarter use of capital would be to have a broadertransport network so that the peak times on the roads were relieved a little bit and that we were not investing loads of capital in having empty roads most of the time.I appreciate that congestion is appalling in Auckland but most of the time those motorways are empty. So why spend billions of dollars on building roads that are going to be empty most of the time? There is a smarter more sustainable more strategic way of using transport money and investing in transport infrastructure.Simon O’Connor: What about buses and trains?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Absolutely! Buses and trains need to be used. They relieve peak congestion—they relieve peak congestion. It is a smarter use of capital. Actually I would like to hear—[Interruption] The National Party backbenchers are quite keen to interject but they are not at all keen to offer a substantive argument when they get their calls. I would be quite keen to hear a little bit more than just the one-liners that they have been provided with by their research team. I would like to hear them provide a more sensible substantive argument than what they have given so far. So if they want to argue in favour of pouring all the money into uneconomic roads they should get up and argue for that. Let us hear the case for it. But they know there is no case for it—they know there is no case for it.What this bill actually does is it continues National’s legacy of shifting the burden of tax from those who have the most ability to pay for it on to those who have the least ability to pay for it. It comes from a misguided belief that reducing taxes on those who can afford to pay tax somehow creates jobs. It is an absolute fallacy that reducing tax on the extremely wealthy creates jobs. How many jobs did the $5000-a-week tax cut given to the chief executive officer of Telecom create? None—absolutely none. On the other hand—Grant Robertson: Cut 1500 jobs.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Indeed Telecom cut 1500 jobs probably to pay for the chief executive officer’s salary. On the other hand giving tax relief to low and middle income earners is a job creation strategy because it is the consumers who create jobs—it is the consumers who create jobs. Businesses create jobs when there is demand for their products and the demand is high enough that they need to take on additional labour to meet that demand. The demand comes from people having enough money in their back pockets to be able to go to the supermarket to the shops to the computer store to wherever and purchase products. That is where job creation comes from.This Government is labouring again under a complete fallacy. That is why its taxation and economic policies are absolutely wrong and that is why we are not seeing job growth. We are not seeing the 170000 promised jobs—just another broken promise from the National Party. We are not seeing the economic growth that would get the books back into surplus without having to increase taxes and dive down the back of the couch to find every single little penny that can be found to try to get the Government’s books back into that tiniest of tiny surpluses 1/1000th of the overall Government books. That is well within anyone’s margin of error. The slightest little hiccup between now and next financial year and that surplus is completely gone. But the Government could be getting there if it had policy settings that encouraged job growth like the kind of policy settings that the Labour Party has: a capital gains tax to shift investment away from speculative investment in property towards the productive sector which creates jobs; a procurement policy that supports New Zealand businesses and New Zealand jobs; and research and development tax credits which again support the productive sector the sector that creates jobs. Those policies and others are the kinds of things that New Zealanders need to see from this Government not penny-pinching increases to their fuel excise tax just to make up for the fact that this Government has hadunaffordable tax cuts for the wealthy and has an unaffordable programme of road building for roads that are completely uneconomic.I suggest that the National Party members who reckon they represent the provinces go and speak to some of the mayors and the councillors in those provinces and talk to them about their concerns about local roads. This Government is reviewing the way it funds local roads. I suggest that the member for Wairarapa go and talk to Roly Ellis at the Tararua District Council who is deeply concerned that the productivity of the forestry that is about to come online in his region is not going to be as high as it could be because of the lack of investment in their local roads. The Government will not support them to upgrade their local roads because all the money is going to the roads of national significance. That is the truth here—that is the truth. This Government does not support the regions. This Government does not actually support roads and it does not support an integrated transport network. It supports buying votes by building uneconomic gold-plated silly roads that are significant to the National Party only and not to the hard-working people of New Zealand.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): I think the Labour Party needs to take stock of that member Iain Lees-Galloway. I think that an experienced member sitting beside him like Mr Cunliffe who had a high ranking within the Labour Party until recent times should really talk to that member because the comments he is making around the roads of national significance will come back to bite him if he ever ever has to do any policy.The member cannot say that billions of dollars are being spent on empty roads. That member obviously has never been in Auckland. He is from an area outside of Auckland and is making policy and judgments around some of our busiest roads. He has no idea what he is talking about. He deliberately misled this House in talking about how this Parliament was saying that all this money was going on to the roads of national significance. That is not true. The fact is that we pay for half of the roads that are local roads.When they are talking about relieving peak congestion and my colleague made a very good point about trains and buses and so on the member opposite has no idea about the way that public transport works how much it costs and the effectiveness of it at certain periods of time. He finished with the quote of “going to your local communities”.In my first reading speech I made it clear to Mr Iain Lees-Galloway that we welcome his visit to Hamilton—we welcome him to Hamilton. I want to see the day that Mr Iain Lees-Galloway says the words like: “These are monster motorways that serve no real purpose.” I want to see him come to Hamilton and say that to his party’s former member Mr Gallagher to our mayor and to our people. I want to see Mr Iain Lees-Galloway repeat the rhetoric that he has been saying in this House because those words will come back to haunt him.The people of Hamilton the Waikato Northland Auckland Wellington Christchurch and Tauranga know that these roads are important for their communities. They make a big difference to economic growth. They make a huge difference to those communities. I want to see that member come to Hamilton and say what he has been saying outside this House because he is going to be the biggest vote winner that National can get. He is going to be the biggest vote loser that Labour can get at the next election. So thank you Mr Iain Lees-Galloway and just a bit of advice: do not make such statements about roading in the future. Think about what you are saying because it is going to hurt you in the end. Thank you.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): David Bennett is very conscious of words the importance of words that people might say and how they willcome back to haunt him. But there was one word he did not want to utter in his speech—well two words—Iain Lees-Galloway: “Tax”.GRANT ROBERTSON: —“tax” and “petrol tax”—because that is actually what this Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill is about.Hon Hekia Parata: That’s two words.GRANT ROBERTSON: I said it was two. I did correct myself. Thank goodness the Minister of Education is here to keep us on track.Hon David Cunliffe: What about the contingencies?GRANT ROBERTSON: We will come to the contingencies but the words that Mr Bennett does not want to say are “petrol tax” and “raising petrol tax”. He did not mention that once and that is exactly what this bill does. But I am not surprised that he did not mention that because he would not want to get offside with his leader John Key who of course also does not want to mention that what this bill does is put up petrol taxes to ensure that the National Government can create its wafer-thin surplus.The whole notion of what was going to happen with taxation under this Government is something that John Key does not want to talk about. In 2005 this is what he said. He was talking about taxation and he said that what we have to avoid is the indifference to the burden that taxation heaps on middle-income families. Well what does this do? What does this legislation do? What this legislation does is exactly that. It heaps the burden on middle-income families. These are the same families who missed out on a tax cut when the National Party came into office. These are the same families who looked on while the top 10 percent of taxpayers got 40 percent of the benefits. That is what happened. That is the squeeze that was put on the middle-income families that John Key suddenly said he felt for.But then when National got into Government Bill English said: “We don’t want to go down the route of raising taxes.” That is what Bill English said. What did he do? He put GST up. Who did that put the squeeze on? Low and middle income families the people who spend more of their income on the basics. Not the National Party’s mates who can take that money and go away on their overseas trips but the middle and low - income families who got squeezed by a tax increase that National said it would not do. They are the same people who are being squeezed by a 20 percent increase in early childhood education costs and by an increase in prescription charges.This Government likes to say that we are getting into surplus wafer-thin as it may be. Well it is off the backs of hard-working New Zealanders who have not had a break from this Government and it is shifting the burden. The Government is shifting the burden from its debt to New Zealanders’ bank accounts. That is what this bill does. That is why the Labour Party is strongly opposed to this bill. I am very surprised that there are parties in this House who oppose the Government’s Budget but think that they can vote for this legislation. I think it is naive to lift this bill out and say: “Oh well it puts petrol taxes up. We might think that’s a good idea in principle.” This bill is a hoax. It is not about the petrol taxes really is it Mr Brownlee? It is about the political surplus. It is about trying to make sure that a wafer-thin surplus is provided in order to meet a political commitment that this Government has made.The reality is that this bill has to be seen in the context of the rest of the Budget. It has to be seen in the context of a Budget that delivers to National’s vested interests rather than ordinary New Zealanders’. That further creates the two-speed economy where the speculators and the vested interests benefit and where the exporters and the manufacturers and the ordinary New Zealanders go in the slow lane. That is what this is about. This is about a Budget where there was an absolute failure to create policies for affordable housing—an absolute failure. The Government promised big and deliveredvery very little. This is a Budget where there was an absolute failure to address issues of poverty. Great claims were made about food in schools and nothing shows up on Budget day about that. Great claims were made about what would be done to get warrants of fitness for rental housing. The Government is considering a pilot—a consideration of a pilot. That is the context of this bill. That is what members in this House should be thinking about as to whether they vote for this bill.To focus on and accept the Government’s fiddle and fudge and to say that this is about making sure that we get money for these roads of significance to National—or roads of national significance whichever way around you want to put it—yes that is what it wants to claim of it but the reality is that this is a taxation bill that is part of this Government’s Budget. It is vital to its ability to drive its agenda through. Parties on this side of the House should think very carefully about whether they want to support National’s Budget because that is what they will be doing if they vote for this legislation. They will not be voting just to increase petrol taxes—mind you they will be doing that which will put further pressure on middle-income families—but they will be voting for a Budget that is utterly bereft of ideas to create jobs.The two-speed economy I mentioned earlier is relevant to this legislation. As has been discussed before it is the people in regional New Zealand who miss out on the transport policies of this Government. It is the people in regional New Zealand whom this Government is ignoring. And my colleague Phil Twyford when he was Labour’s transport spokesperson and Iain Lees-Galloway now have been going around the country talking to the local authorities in the regions and talking to the businesses in the regions of New Zealand and they are saying a consistent thing the same thing that I have been told when going around talking to polytechs talking to chambers of commerce and talking to businesses about skills and training—that this Government is ignoring them. This Government is ignoring the regions. It is interested only in working with its vested interest mates. Those regions also are not benefiting from this transport policy.As my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway has said before a transport policy needs to be a balanced policy. Yes there needs to be some funding for roads but there needs to be support for public transport and there needs to be support for walking and cycling. That is absent from this Government’s plan. It is so limited. There is no—David Bennett: That’s not true.GRANT ROBERTSON: David Bennett says that that is not true. What is the percentage out of the transport budget that is spent on rail?Iain Lees-Galloway: Seven.GRANT ROBERTSON: Seven percent of the transport budget is spent on rail. This is not a balanced policy. The balance that is really missing here is the balance that would give ordinary middle-income and low-income families a fair go and give regional New Zealand a fair go. David Bennett for all of his bluff and bluster cannot make the case for the fact that this bill is good for his constituents. People in Hamilton and people in the Waikato are asking where this National Government is. This National Government is far more focused on deals with Skycity selling off laws to Warner Bros and selling off to international companies the right to protest as we have seen in the last few days. That is the focus of the National Government. It has ignored the regions of New Zealand and this piece of legislation is one more example of that. So I strongly urge parties in this House to oppose this legislation. This is not legislation that will deliver for New Zealanders and it cannot be isolated out from the rest of this Government’s programme and the rest of what it is doing.This Government has a record of broken promises when it comes to taxation. It has come to this House today with a bill that increases taxes on petrol this year next yearand the year after. That will result in pressure on middle-income households and there is nothing else in this Budget that New Zealanders could look at and say “OK maybe they’re putting my petrol tax up here but I’m going to see some delivery. I’m going to see some new jobs created. That means I can support a petrol tax going up.” But that is not there. On the jobs front this Budget is hilarious. If it were not so serious it would be absolutely hilarious. We have discovered in the Budget figures that the National Government will pull up 60000 jobs short of its target of 170000 new jobs. That is bad enough but then it has recommitted to a new target for 4 years with 170000 jobs again. It will not do it. It does not have the policies to create jobs. It does not have the ideas and the innovation to turn this economy around to make the changes to monetary policy or to change procurement policy so that it focuses on New Zealand jobs. It is not prepared to tax capital through the capital gains tax. All it is prepared to do is tinker around at the edges and benefit vested interests. This bill is critical to that Budget. It should be opposed because it does not deliver to ordinary New Zealanders the kinds of benefits they should expect from a Budget like this.JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): There are two very different reasons for raising a tax. One might be just to raise revenue which the Government then uses to deliver public services. But there is another way of using tax: as an economic instrument that encourages behaviour that we would like to see more of. The Green Party does support the use of economic instruments to reduce carbon emissions and to reduce pollution. That is a smart way of using tax to reflect the full external costs of what is going on and that can raise revenue. Then we can put that revenue into smart alternatives that enable households and businesses to do more of the activities that they do with less pollution and less cost. So the Green Party can support a moderate steady increase in petrol excise duty because what that signals to households and businesses is that actually it would be quite a good thing if they were using less petrol because petrol is polluting. It is also very very good to support the economy of New Zealand in a transition to being less reliant on fossil fuels. That is really important to recognise.Unfortunately the Government is not taking this smart approach to raising the petrol tax. What it is doing is increasing its revenue so it can spend more money on projects that increase the vehicle dependency of New Zealand and do not provide smart alternatives so that businesses and households can get around with less petrol. It is really unfortunate that the Government is not taking this opportunity to invest the increased revenue that it is going to get from petrol tax in the types of transport that have historically been under-invested in; therefore New Zealanders have not had the choice.I think a lot of the time the Government confuses or conflates our high vehicle dependence with the preferences of New Zealanders. It is true that most New Zealanders have to use a car to get most places. This is not because that is what they want to do; it is the direct result of Government policy successive Government policy that has not given New Zealanders the choices that they would like. And hey that has happened all over the world in rich countries—the United States Canada Australia and New Zealand. We are all in this position. But most other countries have realised that we have this opportunity right now to get better economic outcomes better health outcomes and better environmental outcomes and reduce our vulnerability to spikes in the oil price by investing in smart alternatives as a priority. That means making people the priority rather than vehicles in our towns and cities in our traffic engineering planning and funding. That means putting in a lot more money than we are currently into making it safe for kids to walk and cycle to school and giving people the opportunity to live closer to where they work by reducing some of the barriers to intensification that currently exist in district council plans.So there are many opportunities to reduce regulation reduce the amount of money that the Government is spending and get outcomes that New Zealand households and businesses would actually prefer. Of course the National Government is entirely ideological about this. It does not have a balanced approach to transport spending. I love raising this graph. This is the new infrastructure spending in the transport budget for the next 3 years. It is not balanced. All of this purple is on a few expensive new State highways that will carry only 4 percent of daily vehicle trips. So most of the budget for new infrastructure is going on a very small percentage of vehicle trips and freight on almost all of these routes is less than 10 percent of the vehicle trips. These roads already exist. We already have State highways. So duplicating an existing link is going to have very marginal benefits. You could improve the travel time and the safety on these routes for less than a quarter of the cost of the new roads. So it is a bit ridiculous to say that this is going to have any economic benefit at all for New Zealand as a whole.What we have to consider is the opportunity cost. Of course people in Hamilton people in Rodney and people in Wellington will have the perception if they drive on the motorway that it is a good thing right? Because they are not paying for it directly.David Bennett: Yes they are.JULIE ANNE GENTER: No all New Zealanders are paying for it and a small number of people are using it.David Bennett: They buy petrol.JULIE ANNE GENTER: Government members do not understand the difference between direct pricing and indirect pricing and marginal costs and average costs. What the petrol tax is is an average cost pricing and it means that the marginal cost of building the new road is not paid for by the people directly using that road. So of course they are going to say “Oh yeah this is a great thing” but the truth is that if they had to pay for it directly they would not. They would choose not to. They would say “You know what I’d rather spend my money doing something else and going about this another way.” That is what we have seen in Australia. That is why there has been this failure in the roading public-private partnerships in Australia because the traffic models overestimated the demand that people would have for a new tunnel under Brisbane—the new airport link in Brisbane. The traffic model just overestimated demand. When people had to pay tolls guess what? They were not willing to pay the tolls. So it is unfortunate that National is not taking an economically rational approach to its infrastructure investment.What is happening is that it is spending a large amount of money on a few projects that are going to deliver very small if any benefits. Very little money is going to local roads and almost no money is going to new transport infrastructure walking and cycling. Those are the areas that have been systemically under-invested in for the better part of a century. They are very cost-effective. They are much more cost-effective. The truth is that there is nothing evil about cars but they are a very expensive way to try to move a large number of people around urban areas. Government members would like to portray my comments as being ideologically anti-car but they are not anti-car at all. The best thing for people using the roads—particularly for freight—is that more commuters have the opportunity to not take their car and to not clog up the roads at peak time. That is a more cost-effective use of our next dollar in transport infrastructure and investment.So although it is fine for the member for Hamilton East to say that people in Hamilton love this road and that it is going to be good for the economy the objective analysis does not stack up. The Government announced this project before a business case had been undertaken. I have read the business case and it does not stack up.David Bennett: You weren’t there. You weren’t even in Parliament then.JULIE ANNE GENTER: Actually I was a consultant and I worked for Hamilton City Council as a transport planner and policy adviser. So I was there. I was in the New Zealand Transport Agency in 2008 after the new Government was elected working as a consultant for the agency and working on a report calledManaging transport challenges when oil prices rise. The officials in the New Zealand Transport Agency were saying “What a disaster. The National Party has come in with these crazy motorways and the business cases do not stack up and it wants to move them right up the priority chain.” There was an opportunity cost because that was billions of dollars not going on projects that would benefit more New Zealand households and more New Zealand businesses. You do not see the opportunity cost of the money that is not spent on smarter better projects that would have a better outcome.The National Government is putting up the petrol tax and is spending all of the money on projects that give New Zealanders no opportunity to avoid higher oil prices. This is directly related to our current account deficit. There has been a lot of talk about the current account deficit and how the Budget that was presented this week is actually forecasting a worsening of the current account deficit. It is the current account deficit that reflects how much New Zealand is earning relative to how much it is spending on a national level. It is really that that tells us about the health of our economy. The Government Budget is only one tiny part of it. Even if the Government Budget can cobble together some optimistic surplus in a couple of years if New Zealand is spending more money overall offshore and is earning less by selling our goods overseas then we are in a worse economic position and it will be felt by New Zealand households and businesses.Our oil bill went from about $3.5 billion at the beginning of the decade to $8 billion last year. We are importing the same amount of oil but it is worth twice as much. So our current account deficit is worse because New Zealand households and businesses do not have the opportunity to get around in a more energy-efficient way. That is only going to get worse as time goes by so it is right now that we critically need to be investing in those alternatives. Oil prices are not going down any time in the future. Even if we drill it here we are still going to pay the international price of oil. Even if we drill it here we do not use it here. It does not go in the tanks of our cars or trucks; it goes straight overseas because it is not that type of oil that we produce here in New Zealand.So we need to futureproof our transport system. We have the opportunity to futureproof our transport system. The National Government is not taking that opportunity and it is going to have dire economic consequences for the country. Thank you.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): Was that not a cute contribution from Julie Anne Genter the “member for nowhere”? Outstanding. The member—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! That level of interjection is too loud. Would the member Mike Sabin—Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was waiting for you to interrupt the member after his gross breach of the Standing Orders.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member please resume his seat. I call Mike Sabin.MIKE SABIN: I heard the contribution from David Shearer’s speech writer Grant Robertson talking about how nothing in this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill is dealing with poverty which is rubbish first and foremost. Secondly this is another good example of a party that votes against everything that is actually about building the economy that is actually about giving some of the infrastructure that provides productivity. The benefits to Northland alonefrom the Pūhoi to Wellsford motorway are in the vicinity of $45 million per annum. That is a province that deserves to be invested in and this Government and this Minister of Transport are doing that.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): Was that not a short call from Mike Sabin the member from somewhere up in the far north—a very short call—and symptomatic of the amount of input that most of the Government members have had in most of the debates over the last 2 days? I want to tell a small story here about—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Nothing new in that.ANDREW WILLIAMS: No but this is a small story about one Mr Steven Joyce who happened to be—Hon Trevor Mallard: The member for nowhere.ANDREW WILLIAMS: —yes he is a member for nowhere as well—one Mr Steven Joyce who was the Minister of Transport at the time back in about 2008-09. We on the North Shore invited him to come to see us and explain why the incoming National Government had just cancelled the regional fuel tax in Auckland. This was a regional fuel tax that was proposed in Auckland which had taken 3 years for the local authorities in Auckland—all the local authorities which National said could not work together—to negotiate with the former Labour Government to come up with a solution to help fund the major roading and public transport initiatives in the Greater Auckland region. And what it was going to be was that it was going to be a tax along the lines of the one in the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill starting at 2c a litre and rising to about 9c a litre over a period of 5 years. It was going to help Aucklanders self-fund their roading and transport problems and issues over that period of time.But the National Government got into power and immediately cancelled it—just cancelled it outright. This is after 3 years of extensive negotiations by local and central government coming up with a solution so that Aucklanders could be self-sufficient in terms of providing for their future needs in this funding area and one Mr Steven Joyce cancelled it. He was issued three invitations I think it was by me when I was Mayor of North Shore to come to the North Shore and talk to us about why he did it. That same Minister of Transport that same Minister of Transport who lived just north of Albany just over the border in the Rodney area was driving through our city of North Shore half a dozen times a week but he could not find the time to come to explain why he was cancelling the regional fuel tax and at the same time why there were cutbacks to funding on things like walking school buses. On the North Shore we had over 100 walking school buses. In fact I launched the 100th walking school bus on the North Shore when I was mayor. And yet this National Government was cutting back funding for the likes of walking school buses which were encouraging parents to get out of their cars and get their kids to walk to school and to stop thousands and thousands of mothers and fathers in the morning hiving all around the school gates and clogging up the streets while people were trying to get to work.It was a great initiative but Steven Joyce knew better—he knew better. He did not want to have any discussions on that. He did not want to come to see what we were doing in terms of public transport on the North Shore to get people on to buses to get people on to the new Northern Busway—Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The first point of order is one that I would like to take slightly more seriously than I did earlier when I raised it. I think it is fair that you dismissed it because of the tone of my point of order but it did go to the importance of longstanding Speakers’ rulings—since 1996 or probably 1997;post the 1996 election—as to the method of addressing list members. I think that members who are list members are to be addressed either by their names or in this particular case as the Green list member. To refer to honourable members of this House as being members from nowhere or members for nowhere as Mr Sabin did is I think a long-term breach of Speakers’ rulings and I think it is important that we have it on the record that that has not become acceptable.Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member for his point. He is right: it will lead to disorder if members do refer to other members as members from nowhere. But that interjection was then being thrown around from both sides of the House.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My second point of order is to ask you whether the rules have changed as to photography within the Chamber. I thought it was the practice that photographs were not to be take in here including in the lunch break unless by an accredited member of the media and I thought they were not allowed to do it in the interval either. It appears that at least one individual has been on the floor of the House taking photographs—Hon Ruth Dyson: Standing.Hon Trevor Mallard: —standing on the floor of the House.Hon Tau Henare: Name him!Hon Trevor Mallard: Well if the member Mr Henare wants—Mr SPEAKER: Could the member just finish his point of order.Hon Trevor Mallard: Well the question I am asking is whether you Mr Speaker have changed the rules and have given permission for photographs of members to be taken during the luncheon break.Mr SPEAKER: I have not changed any rules at all and if photographs were taken during the luncheon break that is not a matter of order.ANDREW WILLIAMS: It was a very nice Saturday lunch here in Wellington I can assure you. It is not often that we have a Saturday lunch in Wellington but it was most pleasant. It did rob me of the chance when I was in full flight of telling the story of one Mr Steven Joyce who at the time was a member of the Opposition and then he became the Minister of Transport. Then—Tracey Martin: What electorate does he represent?ANDREW WILLIAMS: He represents the National Party. He has never been elected to anything himself. He has actually never ever stood in an election himself but he does have a huge amount of influence in the National Party. And that one Mr Steven Joyce lives in the area of Rodney just north of the North Shore and he was the Minister of Transport at the time when he cancelled a proposed regional fuel tax in Auckland which was going to help to provide a huge amount of self-sufficiency for Auckland in its transport woes in terms of not only its roading but also its public transport.It is somewhat ironic that something like 4 or 5 years later the National Government is now saying that it needs more money for roads of National Party political significance. That is what they are called now—roads of National Party political significance. It is now putting in place an excise tax on fuel starting on 1 July of 3c a litre going up every 1 July—next year another 3c a litre and the year after that another 3c a litre. It now sees fit to charge every single New Zealander all over this country another 9c a litre but the Hon Steven Joyce when he was the Minister of Transport could not see any merit in Aucklanders having a regional fuel tax of their own to help pay for their own. It is ironic that on 18 December 2012 Gerry Brownlee the current Minister of Transport said the series of July increases will also ready the National Land Transport Fund for investment in upper North Island transport projects beyond the roads of national significance programme. Basically most of this money will be going into roads north of Hamilton. Hamilton and north is where the money is mainly going.There is a little bit in Wellington. There is a little bit down in Christchurch—a token amount in Christchurch. But the bulk of it is going north of Hamilton.So as I said earlier every single person in the small population of Dipton in Mr English’s area—down there where he has his holiday home where he visits occasionally and where maybe during this adjournment he might perhaps be visiting—will as of 1 July be paying another 3c a litre for their fuel in Dipton to help pay for roads in Hamilton and north and in Auckland and north of Auckland. I am sure that the people in the electorate of Bill English the Minister of Finance must be thrilled with that. They must be absolutely chuffed. They must be chuffed to think that in 12 months’ time they can look forward to another 3c a litre increase on top of that. And in 2 years’ time they can look to another 3c a litre increase. They must be chuffed because down in Dipton they must be thinking: “Boy we must be going to get some really good roads in Dipton out of all these extra taxes that our member of Parliament Bill English is going to charge us. We must be going to get some super highways in Dipton. We must be going to get some wide arterials. We must be going to get some four-lane highways in Dipton.” Not on your life Dipton. You are not going to get a single thing out of this Minister of Finance or out of this Minister of Transport. All you are going to get Dipton is another 9c a litre. So when you travel and drive down to Invercargill when you travel and go up to Queenstown and when you go over to Dunedin every time you take a car journey you the people of Dipton should remember that you are paying more money to get there and more money to get back to Dipton because this Minister of Finance and this Minister of Transport determined that you would help pay for the roads north of Hamilton.But what I would encourage you to do if you are in Dipton is maybe take a drive up to the North Island. Drive up to the North Island get to Hamilton and when you finally get to Hamilton and you get on to some of these roads of National Party political significance make the most of it. I would probably suggest you drive between Hamilton and Auckland and around and do it four or five or six or seven times while you are up there. It is a long way to drive from Dipton up to north of Hamilton. When you get there make the most of it because you might do it only once in a lifetime when you have taken your car all the way from Dipton to go up there to pay for those roads. So when you get there “Diptonites”—are they called “Diptonites”?Hon Trevor Mallard: “Dipsticks”.ANDREW WILLIAMS: They are not called “dipsticks”; they are “Diptonites”. That is most appalling. There is only one “dipstick” from Dipton. So “Diptonites” go up to the North Island and enjoy those roads of National Party significance. Drive up and down them. Make the most of them and know that every time you are putting the petrol in your car at the pump holding the handle pressing the button putting petrol into your car you are paying for all those roads that the National Party wants north of Hamilton.That is not fair on New Zealanders all over this country. It is not fair on the whole country. This is a tax and it is a hidden tax. It is a tax on the whole country and everyone is going to be paying to help balance the National Party’s Budget. That is what it is. It is balancing the National Party’s Budget so it can hopefully in 2014-15 come up with a tiny little minute surplus—a tiny little minute surplus. That is what it is all about. It is trying to balance the books. New Zealand First does not go along with it. It is unfair.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I commend the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill to the House.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I rise to oppose the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill recalling first off what itdoes to petrol prices. When the Labour-led Government left office the total petrol excise duty was 42.5c a litre. It has already gone up by one-fifth; it is 50.5c a litre. And this bill will put it up another 9c to 59.5c a litre raking another $7 billion over 10 years out of the pockets of middle and lower-income New Zealanders.That is not enough to fund the roads of no surplus because it has to be done in conjunction as we said in the first reading with a number of other measures that are required to contrive what has been repeatedly described as a wafer-thin surplus but which the Labour Opposition argues is actually a bogus surplus because you do not get there without having to simultaneously manipulate about $3 billion worth of revenue and spending measures. The Government is taking $200 million out of the 2014-15 operating allowance. It is refusing to give back $700 million worth of ACC levies against the advice of officials. It is magicking $400 million of tax credit offsets in one year only—the year that it needs to hit surplus. It is contriving a $1.1 billion increase in corporate tax receipts for that year only and a $1.1 billion increase in PAYE and employee tax as well. With all of those things this adds up to a Budget that really is not a surplus.I want to examine two other aspects of this today in this part of the debate the second reading. The first is what the impact is on the economy and on the Government’s other objectives of passing this measure and the other fiscal measures that it is part of. There is a thing in the economic jargon called a “fiscal impulse” and for the folks listening in at home that is what the net effect is if you like of all the things that the Government is doing here—all the taxes it takes out and the spending that it puts in. Is it putting your foot on the accelerator to make your car go faster or is it putting your foot on the brake to slow it down? If you put money in you make it go faster; if you take money out it slows the economy down.The highest application of the brakes the biggest negative fiscal impulse is in the magic year where it supposedly hits surplus and that is because the Government is having to hold back on spending and amp up the tax it is taking and stop giving stuff like ACC levies back in order to get to the wafer-thin magic line. The net effect of that is a minus 1.2 percent fiscal impulse. That means GDP growth is about 1 percent lower than it would be if that had been neutral—all right?So the Government is shrinking the size of the Budget shrinking the size of the State relative to the economy taking energy out of the economy. In so doing what happens? Our unemployment rate is staying up at 6 percent not the 5.2 percent it was forecast to fall to in last year’s Budget—that is more people by the decision of this Government are going to be out of jobs than need to be and indeed more people are going to be out of jobs than it said would be just a year ago. Those are real people real families who have lost hope who have lost self-esteem and who have lost income. Of course for other taxpayers that means they are having to pay for those families to live through the unemployment benefit when they do not need to be. That is the aggregate effect of a 1.2 percent slow-down in GDP growth as a result of the Government trying all these tricks to get to a surplus that does not really exist. We agree with the idea of getting to surplus. We would do it too but we would do it in a much more genuine way without these negative side effects on the economy.The third thing that I want to reflect on today given the enormous amount of money that we are watching the Government clawing out of the pockets of ordinary Kiwis through this bill—$7 billion over 10 years—is to ask that age-old question about fiscal and revenue policy: who gets what and who pays what? Because at the end of the day politics and the arguments around this Chamber are very much about who is getting and who is paying. What New Zealanders are now crystal clear about is that who is getting under this Government is the top few percent and who is paying is everybody else.If we needed to refresh our minds with a little bit of history back to 2010 we look at the famous tax switch where the Government put up GST 2.5 percent for everybody and then gave the top tax rate a massive tax cut. What was the effect of that? It was to raise $14.3 billion in tax out of everybody else. Average income earners got $12 a week; someone on John Key’s salary got $243 a week—Joe Average: $12; John Key: $243. The upper income tax cuts were not neutral. The Government would not have to do all this smoke and mirrors and raise your petrol tax if it had kept the promise to make this tax neutral. In giving more to the rich and taking it off the poor the Government was under by $1 billion over 4 years. It was $1 billion short according to its own Treasury documents.It does not stop there. This debate gives us an opportunity to run through the list just to call to mind all the other sneaky little taxes that National has been up to. We caught it out twice in the last few months: the car-park tax which it has rolled back off and the famous iPad tax—the famous iPad tax. You know the Government thinks it is good enough to charge ordinary workers office workers fringe benefit tax for the private use of their work iPad or computer. You are supposed to go through and work out how much of your use of your computer is private and then pay the fringe benefit tax on that. What a ridiculous idea. The Government however did not have the courage to take on the guys who make the iPads like Apple and the other big IT companies and make them pay a fair share of cross-border tax. They can just shift their costs and they pay almost no tax at all.The Government has forced people to pay 20 percent higher early childhood education costs a 31 percent average increase in school donations and 22.5 percent higher tertiary and post-school fees. Student loan repayment rates have gone up and ACC charges have gone up—get this—67 percent on the work account 23 percent on the earners account and 31 percent on the motor vehicle account. Workers’ ACC costs have gone up 67 percent in the life of this Government. Officials told the Government it was going to be charging $1 billion too much in 2014-15. You know what? It said: “Forget it—we’re not giving it back because we won’t hit surplus.” I call that being unfair and not straight up with New Zealanders.What about KiwiSaver? The Government has put up the compulsory payment on KiwiSaver and reduced the tax credits. Prescriptions charges—just lots of nasty little things—have gone up from $3 to $5. Fuel excise has already gone up one-fifth or 20 percent under this Government and it is going to put it up another 9c a litre through this bill. Tobacco charges have gone up. Road user charges have gone up. Local government rates have gone up. Alcohol excise has gone up. Aviation fees have gone up. Company filing fees have gone up.The point is that this is a Government that came in and gave massive tax cuts to the top 1 or 2 percent and then it has spent the last 5 years getting everybody else to pay for them. This is not good enough. This is not what New Zealanders want to see. This is not the New Zealand that we grew up to believe we had a right to live in. We thought we were going to grow up in a country where everybody got a fair shake of the sav—where the kid of a doctor and the kid of a driver could aspire to the same success in life; where it did not matter what the size of your parents’ wallet was or what your skin colour was or what your gender or your orientation was everybody got a shot.That is not National’s vision of New Zealand and this bill is yet another bill like all the other rubbish we have seen come through on this Budget where you New Zealanders are paying too much and the rich are getting away with too little. We need a vision we need a positive future we need everybody to have a stake in this country—to be proud of being New Zealanders again. We want a bit of positive national identityand we are not getting it from this Government which is disappointing overtaxing and dismally failing New Zealanders.Dr CAM CALDER (National): I commend this bill to the House.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): It is very disappointing and really a slap in the face for democracy and for the public that the National Government would come to the House pushing through this obnoxious legislation and those members are not even prepared to stand up and justify it make the case and argue for this law. Well on this side of the House we are prepared to stand up and oppose it. There are two reasons that we oppose this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. The first is that it is an illegitimate tax grab. It is a politically motivated attempt to conjure up a surplus when one really does not exist so—Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s a lie.PHIL TWYFORD: It is a lie. It is a political lie for John Key to try to convince the public that he has got the books back in balance. The Government is doing it at the expense of ordinary New Zealanders and the motoring public.We want to talk about tax and put this tax in the context of this Government’s record on taxation. So let us talk about tax. The crowning glory of the John Key Government was to distribute massive tax cuts that transferred wealth from the poorest sections of society to the top.Chris Auchinvole: Ordinary New Zealanders are motoristsPHIL TWYFORD: We know—we know Mr Auchinvole—that 40 percent of the benefit of those tax cuts went to the top 10 percent of New Zealand income earners. That is an outrage and then this Government has spent the remaining few years shovelling home the cost of those tax cuts to ordinary New Zealanders.Chris Auchinvole: “Shovelling shovelling!”PHIL TWYFORD: Yes it has. It has increased GST a flat tax that added to the burden of already stressed low-income earners. It has refused the entreaties of every economist in this country almost without exception—every academic the IMF the OECD Treasury and everybody who says that the Government should institute a capital gains tax that it is the missing link in our taxation system and that not only would it be just to tax people who make their living from the earnings off assets but also it would channel investment into the productive economy. But no National is right and everybody else is wrong on that apparently. And now we see this stealth tax by pumping up the petrol excise by 9c over a period of time—3c every year for the next 3 years. That is an illegitimate tax grab.I also want to make the point in the few minutes I have that the other reason that Labour opposes this tax grab is that the purpose of it other than creating an illusionary surplus for the Government is to fund Gerry Brownlee’s wasteful economically damaging white elephant motorway projects. These so-called roads of National Party significance are the defining feature of this National Government’s transport policy. Labour is not opposed to all of the roads of national significance. We are not opposed to all motorways we are not opposed to all infrastructure but let me give you a couple of examples of why we oppose this transport policy and this particular bill. The “Holiday Highway” which National wants to build between Pūhoi and Wellsford—the Government claims it is an economic lifeline for the north. Well let me tell you—let me tell the members who do not like it being described as the “Holiday Highway”—that there are approximately 9000 vehicles on the road every day between Warkworth and Wellsford. Do you know how many vehicles are on the Te Atatū Road in my electorate? Four times that many—36000 cars a day on a normal Auckland arterial road and this Government wants to blow $1.7 billion on a gold-plated four-lane dual-carriage expressway on a road that carries only 9000 vehicles a day. It beggars belief.Mike Sabin got up in this House and said that this was the economic lifeline for Northland and that people desperately needed this road but he will not support a policy that we have got that would spend $400 million right now on eliminating the accident black spots eliminating the traffic bottlenecks. We would fix that road right now by spending $400 million. That member and the National Government want to blow $1.7 billion of this country’s taxes on a gold-plated “Holiday Highway”. That is completely unjustifiable.The other example that I want to put to the House of a wasteful—Hon Tau Henare: It’ll save lives. That’s what it’ll do—save lives.PHIL TWYFORD: Oh my God! The “brains trust” of Te Atatū has finally woken up. I am surprised that he is in the House. Did you not know Mr Henare that there is a football game on television at the moment? I am surprised that you are not in your office with your feet up on the couch watching the football because it is on right now. Frankly I am surprised to see the member—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to support this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill and to offer a positive transport vision for Aotearoa New Zealand in contrast to the National Government. We support a modest increase in the fuel excise levy signalled well in advance. We think that 3c a year over 3 years is realistic given that we are in the lower half of the OECD fuel excise levels.Andrew Williams: Selling out.GARETH HUGHES: Selling out? What we are talking about is giving New Zealanders a clear signal which is to invest in efficient vehicles invest in innovation like electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles and invest in better public transport. The problem is of course that the Government is not backing this up because the Government is still stuck in the 1960s. Gerry Brownlee still has a 1960s approach to transport. Gerry Brownlee—or as I call him New Zealand’s “Colossus of Roads”—is spending the lion’s share of the transport budget on just seven new motorways. It is unbalanced it is ideological and it is fiscally reckless.What the Government wants to do is borrow to build $12 billion worth of only seven roads. It has got poor business cases. Half of them have got negative benefit-cost ratios. There has been no Treasury analysis. What it is doing is not spending any extra money on public transport infrastructure investment. It is closing the regional rail lines and this is the problem that has led to the situation of why we are having this bill passed under urgency now. Because fewer people are driving we have got traffic down petrol up and public transport going through the roof. Fewer people are driving and fewer people are paying the fuel taxes. So the Government has to keep on borrowing an extra $1 billion and keep putting up the fuel taxes to keep spending money on the roads which we know Kiwis are driving on less.So I have got this vision of Gerry Brownlee with his arm out of the window screaming down the road to nowhere pedal to the metal. He does not know where he is going. He is too embarrassed to ask for directions. Bill English in the back seat should speak up because New Zealand cannot afford to be making decisions like this. Mr Brownlee you should ask for advice and get a map to a better future. Bill English should speak up about this. The Government has made a big deal of the surplus but what we really should be looking at is the current account deficit. It is 5 percent of GDP and it is going to be 6.5 percent soon. We are second to only Turkey at the moment in terms of the OECD. We are on track to have the worst-performing current account deficit in the OECD by 2017. We are going to be borrowing $17 billion in deficit which requires settling off the assets and borrowing more. We have got thesecond-largest current account deficit in the OECD. So if New Zealand was a household or a business what we are doing at the moment is losing $10 billion a year. We are on track to hit a $208 billion net overseas debt by 2017.The problem of course is that more motorways—especially the ones where half of them had negative benefit-cost ratios—are not going to help with these significant structural economic problems. What we should be doing is focusing on the tradable sector focusing on innovation and focusing on competition. You know we should be focusing on reducing electricity prices through things like NZ Power. We should be looking at helping our businesses—supporting Kiwibank and the finance sector costs. We should be supporting the manufacturers which are haemorrhaging jobs at the moment yet what we know from the Government’s $12 billion spend on just seven roads is that its jobs estimate is that each job is going to cost between $500000 and $1 million. Jobs are an important question and roads and motorways are not the answer to that question.We should invest in the right infrastructure in things like a second internet cable things like better public transport and not these uneconomic motorways which the Government has to borrow to build. The Government is borrowing billions to pick winners in the motorways. This is like Julius Vogel in the 1880s borrowing millions of pounds offshore to build bullock tracks. It is looking to the 1960s. It is not what smart economies are doing at the moment. That is where the Greens are offering a positive alternative a positive solution.We want to give Kiwis choice—things like a central business district rail link for Auckland. Auckland is expected to grow by an extra million people—75 percent of the country’s growth will be in Auckland over the next 30 years—and what we know is that the central business district rail link is going to transform the public transport infrastructure in Auckland. It is going to unlock the potential of the central business district. It is going to massively help the development of the inner city where we know most of the productivity gains are. This is going to unlock the city of Auckland. It is going to take 15 million kilometres of vehicle trips off the road by 2040 according to the Auckland Council. It is a great plan. It is a positive plan. This is where we should be investing—in smart infrastructure. So although we support the modest fuel excise levies increase contained in this bill what we do not support is what the money is going to be spent on. We have got a smarter vision for this country and I believe that New Zealanders stand behind us in it. Kia ora.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I commend this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill to the House.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.Ayes73New Zealand National 59; Green Party 11; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes39New Zealand Labour 31; New Zealand First 7; Independent: Horan.Bill read a second time.In CommitteePart 1 Amendments to Customs and Excise Act 1996GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): It is a pleasure to rise in the debate on Part 1 of this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits)Amendment Bill. I just want to note before we get into the detail of Part 1 of this bill that in the explanatory note of the bill there is the suggestion that the increases in petrol tax being proposed here “are to provide additional funding to the national land transport fund”—Hon Tau Henare: They’ve all been told to stand up.GRANT ROBERTSON: Mr Henare can stand up any time he likes. Mr Henare can stand up any time he likes and give a speech in this Chamber to justify this increase in petrol tax because we have not heard that.Hon Tau Henare: OK sit down and I’ll take a call.GRANT ROBERTSON: No I am not sitting down. I am not sitting down until Mr Henare tells me that it will be a substantive call—that he will use his full 5 minutes and he will justify to this Committee—Hon Tau Henare: Right you’re on. You’re on—sit down.GRANT ROBERTSON: —why National is putting petrol tax up by 3c a litre this year 3c a litre next year—Hon Tau Henare: Yep.GRANT ROBERTSON: —when I have finished when I have finished—3c a year in the third year. Then we can hear—Mr Henare has got plenty to say now but when I sit down he will not be seeking the call because those National Government members do not want to stand up in this Chamber and justify to New Zealanders whose budgets are already squeezed why they will be paying more in petrol tax this year next year and the year after. We have already heard today that petrol tax will be 59c a litre. To the taxpayer it will be 59c a litre after this budgetary increase up from 42c a litre when National came into office. So Mr Henare and all of the rest of his National colleagues could get up and justify to this Committee why they are doing this.But to return to the point that I was making the explanatory note says that “The increases are to provide additional funding to the national land transport fund”. My concern is that that really is not the reason. Yes the money will—in the sense of the way that National likes to describe these things—be going to the roads of national significance under the National Land Transport Fund but the reason that Part 1 of this bill is here is in fact not that. The reason is in order for National to put over a hoax on the public that there is in fact a surplus—that there is in fact a surplus. Jonathan Coleman raises his eyebrow but that is the truth. That is the truth.If we go through the Budget and we look at the situation heading towards 2014-15 when the National Government says it thinks it will be in surplus it does this by a series of fixes and fiddles of which this bill including Part 1 is part. Those other fixes and fiddles include overcharging New Zealanders on their ACC levies—a magic $400 million worth of tax credit offsets that happen only in the year in which the Government says it will get into surplus. They also include an additional $1.1 billion in corporate tax that comes in only in the year in which the Government says it is going to get into surplus—Hon Trevor Mallard: How much extra?GRANT ROBERTSON: $1.1 billion.Hon Trevor Mallard: For $75 million?GRANT ROBERTSON: Yeah that is right.Hon Trevor Mallard: A bit margin of error really isn’t it?GRANT ROBERTSON: It is and this is the problem. It is giving itself a buffer Mr Mallard to make sure—for all the other things that will go wrong for this Government—that it will get there. But the truth is that this Part 1 and the explanatory note of this bill is I think actually misleading. It is misleading to the people of New Zealand because the real reason for this is to try to make the political promise thatNational made of getting into surplus somehow real. It is a marginal surplus. It is wafer-thin. It could be wiped out with one Hekia Parata stuff-up and then it will be gone like the class size—Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s probably Simon Bridges now.GRANT ROBERTSON: —or Simon Bridges. In fact the cost of coming back every month to amend the Crown Minerals Act will probably wipe that out in itself. So I think that is misleading.What Part 1 does as we have noted before is increase petrol tax—or motor spirits tax as it is written in the bill—on 1 July 2013 1 July 2014 and 1 July 2015. It is 3c a litre. That equates to around a 5 percent or nearly 6 percent increase each year in that rate. The National Party has gone to the public at the last two elections saying: “We are not about increasing taxes. We are not about increasing taxes. That terrible Labour Government—that is what it did.” except that the record of the National Government is that there is one group in society who get their taxes decreased. They are the well-off. We know that from the 2010 tax package where 40 percent of the benefit of those tax cuts went to the top 10 percent. So National fulfilled its promise for the top 10 percent but what the other 90 percent have seen are tax increases just like the ones contained in Part 1 and in addition they have seen GST going up. That GST increase we know detrimentally affects people in the lower and middle-income brackets because—[Bell rung]Hon Member: Thank you Mr Chair—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Grant Robertson. Oh sorry—I call Grant Robertson.GRANT ROBERTSON: Thank you Mr Chair—a bit slow. That detrimentally affects the 90 percent of people who do not fall in the National Party’s target market. We have also seen massive increases in ACC levies and we know that this is a classic Nick Smith trick. You bump up the levies. You push the levies up more and more and more you create the crisis and then you get the great credit in a few years’ time when the ACC levies come down. There has been a 67 percent increase in those ACC levies in the time of this Government.So this is a Government that has promised New Zealanders that their taxes would not go up but in actual fact what it has done is transferred the burden of debt away from itself as a Government on to households. It is a transfer of the debt and the problems that New Zealand has on to households so the Government can make its books look good. In the Budget of which this bill is a core part it sits alongside a transfer of wealth as well. What we have seen if we look for instance just at the asset sales programme is a transfer of wealth where half of our energy companies which were 100 percent owned by New Zealanders go to a 2.5 percent ownership. That is a massive transfer of wealth away from New Zealanders who are also at the same time having a burden of debt transferred on to them.Part 1 of this bill sits in the middle of the National Government’s budgetary strategy. That is why the Labour Party is opposing this. Not only will this bill and this part put enormous pressure on middle and low-income families who are trying to fill up their cars each week trying to make sure that they can get through the gridlock in Auckland transport that the Government has created—so it puts pressure on them—but more than that we are opposing this bill because it is part of the Government’s strategy in this Budget to pretend that it can get into surplus. That as I said is a hoax on New Zealanders because that surplus is created by burdening New Zealanders for a short-term political goal for National.The total impact on the National Land Transport Fund would actually put it $17 billion into surplus. Mr Brownlee might like to tell me whether that is true. It goes wellbeyond what is absolutely needed in order to keep the National Land Transport Fund operating. That is because its purpose is actually much wider than the one that Mr Brownlee has looked at.I think my colleague Phil Twyford made an extremely good point in the second reading about where this money is allegedly going. As I say I believe the purpose is actually a political one but the stated purpose is for the National Land Transport Fund. The National Land Transport Fund is focused on the roads of national significance. The important thing to note about the roads of national significance is that National has chosen these for its political purpose. I recommend to everybody who has not seen it to have a good look at the documentaryThe Hollow Men—it is available on DVD—and they will be able to see in that documentary how National planned it out to make political decisions about roading—political decisions about roading—which have now turned into this programme of roads of national significance. So it is not just a political matter of getting into surplus; it is a political matter of where the funding for roading goes.Phil Twyford made the point: if these decisions were being made on what is in the best interests of all New Zealanders why would you be funding a road with 9000 cars a day on it and not funding a road with 36000 cars a day on it? Why would you not fund an inner-city rail link which would actually reduce congestion and which would actually have a much higher level of benefit to New Zealand and instead decide to fund unnecessary highways in other parts of that area? It is because it is purely political. It is because this is a political statement by the National Party not a statement in terms of building a sustainable transport policy that has got investment across different modes.I reiterate what Phil Twyford has said: the Labour Party is not opposed to investment in roading projects where that makes sense. It is important that we have a good roading network right across New Zealand not just in the electorates that the National Government picks off but it is equally important that we invest in other types of transport as well. The taxation that is being generated in this bill will go into the National Land Transport Fund to fund politically motivated projects by the National Government not projects that are in the best interests of developing a sustainable transport network across New Zealand. That is a significant reason to oppose the bill.Whatever some parties in the Chamber might feel in principle about the fact that petrol tax should rise they need to look at this bill in the context of a National Budget that is not about sustainable transport solutions. If you are increasing petrol tax in order to create a more sustainable transport network all well and good. That is not what this Government is doing. This Government is putting a hoax on New Zealanders.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Transport): I am taking a call because I think the proposals that are being put by the Labour Party not so much by the Green Party and by the New Zealand First Party through the first two readings and now through the start of the Committee stage are completely wrong—Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The rules around the Committee stage of debate are very clear and they are that it is a debate on that particular part of the bill. There have been no proposals put by New Zealand First or by the Green Party in the Committee stage because they have not even had a call yet.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am listening very carefully and if there is any rebuttal the Minister can bring up those points. I am listening very carefully. He has just moved into the first few seconds of his speech and we will see what develops from there.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Are you ruling that a Minister in the chair can rebut the second reading and first reading debate during the Committee stage?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. I am saying here that the Minister is making some initial comments and that is where we are taking it from.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: It is fascinating that the Labour Party thinks you can have a debate without a proposition. Grant Robertson is completely wrong in asserting that this move is all about the Budget and how it looks in years ahead. I want to take members back to the regulatory impact statement that they have all been provided with and I want them to look at their own history.From 1 January 2002 there were rate increases from Labour on both the petrol excise levy and the road-user charges. Labour had this sort of lumpy approach where it would simply put the rates up when it thought it could get away with it. So it would have a 2.8 percent increase followed by no increase for 2 years then whack the public about with a 13.8 percent increase. That was on top of the 2 years before where it was 8.4 percent. Then it sneaked around and let the fund run down to the bottom so that you could not do anything with it with 1.7 percent and 1.5 percent increases.What we have tried to do is to get over this sort of lumpiness. Labour went from 1.5 percent to 7.1 percent then to 6.6 percent and then to nothing. What we have tried to do is say to New Zealanders right up front that the cost of the roading network is one that is borne by the people who are actually using the roads—actually using the roads.Hon Trevor Mallard: 6.6 was National. That was National not Labour. Come on read it.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Now he wants to deny that the 2008 Budget had anything to do with Labour. That is not the case Mr Mallard. No wonder they are in trouble. They cannot even read the Crown accounts.I think that this mock outrage from Labour is exactly what it is—mock outrage. The idea that they are going to somehow sail into Government and then not put on road-user charges not put on excise tax is utter rubbish. What we have honestly said to New Zealanders is that here is a programme we are getting it done and these are the costs that are involved in it—right up front not this sneaky year-by-year thing getting away with what you think you can. It is a whole programme that runs out for 3 years.This idea too that it is all going into these roads of national significance—great that they are—is wrong. There is a lot of money going into public transport a lot of money going into local roads—all of those things are happening. [Interruption] It does not suit Phil Twyford’s rhetoric when he is talking to people in Auckland. He has actually bought into the idea that there is somehow a massive business case acceptable for the Auckland rail loop right now. What we have said to Aucklanders is that we want to consider the transport plan for Auckland and we want to work with them about the timings for the transport plan in Auckland. The member knows that because Len Brown has told him. Len Brown has told him that.We need to say we need to make it very clear that Auckland is the most important city in New Zealand. There is no doubt about that; it is an important place. But it is not the only city and we do need to spend in other parts.Phil Twyford: John Campbell got your number! He nailed you!Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The member can sit there saying that his good friend John Campbell that well-known acolyte of the Labour Party has somehow got me into a tricky position. I am not aware of that. I find him an absolutely fair man to be honest—absolutely fair. The fact that he mixes with people like Phil Twyford is something that worries me but I am not going to make too many more comments about that as I want to come back to this Part 1.What Part 1 does is effectively say to New Zealanders that the roads they run on are becoming more efficient the vehicles they run are becoming more efficient we do need to fund these roads and here is a proposal for doing it. The cost of this will raise theprice for motorists by about $45 a year in the first year. You have got up there in Auckland the Victoria Park Tunnel you have got the Newmarket Viaduct you have got the Waterview Connection coming soon which people are very very keen on plus the other roading networks to be done up there.I am told by many people who use the new roads in Auckland that they are saving up to 20 minutes a day on their land transport journey. That is 20 minutes. If you price that out looking at what those savings mean they are extraordinarily large. Those savings are in excess of $250 a year for some of those people. When it comes to issues like the Christchurch Southern Motorway people tell me it is saving at least 10 minutes a day on their trip. That is having a very big financial impact on that city. You say to yourself: “Well what do we do if we take the horse-and-cart approach? What if we say we are going to put out just rail networks for ever?” We are already putting $1 billion into KiwiRail. Thank you for the glass of water Mr Mallard it is very kind of you. I do appreciate it. You may have found your station in life. You may have found your station in life. In fact with that jacket on you look a bit like a messenger.We are putting all of this money into the recapitalisation of rail because we know it is important. We are investigating Clifford Bay because we know it is important. We are funding with Auckland Transport all those new trains that are going in the urban network there. Yes there is a place for rail but there will always be a point where it is at its most optimum and there is not a business case that says it is a good idea for this current Budget cycle. But I want to tell you we are looking at all of those options with Auckland and there is plenty of time for things to be considered before we reach those peak difficult points. One thing I would ask is—Phil Twyford: Take 20 years Gerry. Take 20 years.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well why would it take 20 years? Why is the Labour Party putting up a 20-year plan for Auckland and pretending that that is going to solve their problems overnight? It is not. It is a big big issue and everyone knows that Auckland is going to get bigger. It is going to grow by 600 more people a week over the next decade or two and we are going to have to have the roads that those people expect to run on. You can rail against that with your rail proposals as much as you like. The fact is that we are not seeing the trends that we need.The reality is that in 1944 when petrol rationing was at its peak during the Second World War New Zealand in real terms had its highest patronage of public transport and it has been falling off ever since. The tunnel loop is actually predicated on that number being reached again and then expanded several times over. So it is not a simple matter of just saying: “Let’s magic up $3 billion and build this tunnel and the problems are over.”—far from it. Frankly politicians on the left have got to stop trying to tell people that that is the case because it is not a deliverable.Part 1 is a very very clear attempt—in fact it is a very very clear message to New Zealanders that the Government wants to be up front about these charges. We are not hiding them. We are saying as has always been the case that the users of the roads pay for the roads. We actually told New Zealanders in December 2012 that we were going to do this.Phil Twyford: During the Christmas lull.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: And where was Phil Twyford? He had already gone on holiday.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I am going to do something relatively unusual. I am sure my colleagues will come back and rebut the comments made by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. I want to thank you Mr Chairman for letting him run on and effectively do the second reading rebuttal as part of the Committee stage because the debate is now so broad that all our members will want to have a go at leasttwice and possibly up to four times as they are allowed to do. I would like though to do something slightly unusual and that is to focus on the detail of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill and in particular the detail of the Customs and Excise Act which it is proposed to amend.I will start as the Minister briefly referred to the regulatory impact statement by informing him that the 6.6 percentage increase in petrol excise duty to which he referred was on 1 October 2010. In case the member does not remember that was when he was the Minister of Transport and in charge of the area. To blame the Labour Government and say it was a Labour Government increase is just clearly wrong but it shows the grip on detail that occurs when you put either Steven Joyce or Gerry Brownlee in charge of these areas.It is interesting to note that the proposed increases are at about double the rate of inflation. So what we are doing over the period of this Government is a transfer of the effect of taxation from those on high incomes to those who are on low incomes. There is no doubt that this is a regressive tax something that is pushed on to people especially poorer people in rural areas people in cities who do not have public transport alternatives and people who are forced to use their cars. I think in particular of my constituency of Wainuiōmata. Although in some places and at some times the public transport is relatively good in other parts and at certain times at the weekend and in the evenings people are forced to use their cars because public transport is not properly available. What this bill does is push it back on to them.The question I want to get to though—and I apologise that I was unable to be in the House for the Minister’s speech on the first or second readings—and what I am slightly surprised about when I look carefully at this bill is an indication of whether it is necessary. My reading of section 79A of the Customs and Excise Act as it was amended in the latest set of amendments is that there is already a regulation-making power sitting there for the Minister to increase excise rates in this particular way. I am left with a dilemma here as to the reasoning on the part of the National Government for taking this approach. One reason could be—and it is fair to say that this is slightly cynical—that it is doing this now rather than passing a regulation later on at the appropriate point in time in order to make its Budget figures look good. We do not need to be here. According to the calendar on the wall today is theoretically Thursday but actually it is Saturday afternoon. We are debating legislation but the Government already has the power to do these sorts of changes under regulation. The Government does not need this legislation to do it but methinks one of the reasons the Government is doing it is in order to gerrymander its Budget figures. It is to get into the Budget to do it as part of the Budget legislation and to create an illusionary surplus through this method rather than using the regulation-making powers that already sit within the Act. I am going to be even slightly more cynical still and ask the question—Chris Hipkins: For one so young.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well I like the compliment from my teenage friend Mr Hipkins but at this mid-point of my career I accept that I am not that young.The point that I would now like to make in a slightly more cynical way—although nothing would surprise me about Steven Joyce and his cynical approach—is that by passing this bill in this way the Government leaves open the option of also regulating for more. The question I am asking is whether we are having this change now so that the National Government at some stage later on can again hit motorists up for yet another increase. I would not have said that even about Bill Birch because Bill tended to be pretty transparent. Muldoon would just tell you if he was going to do something like this; there would no surprises from Sir Robert. But I am not sure with Mr Joyce in charge of this part of the finances whether in fact what he is doing in using the powersthat are available under 79A(1) the power to alter “rates of excise duty and excise-equivalent duty on motor spirits … by Order in Council”—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Annually.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Annually—that is right. So what the Government can do is implement this 3c increase in July and it can do an annual change in January as well. So in fact instead of having one set of 3c increases a year it could have two.I know that there are some people who may well be future colleagues who think that that is a good thing and some people will want to keep increasing the rate of excise in that way. What I want to say to my Green colleagues is thank you for your transparency. Thank you for your honesty much unlike Gerry Brownlee who appears to be taking this approach for two reasons: firstly to gerrymander the Budget figures but secondly under sections which are—it says B48S; it does not say “BS48”. It is B48S. This amendment to the 1996 Act has the power that appears to be reserved and preserved—preserved and reserved by this amendment—to have increases in excise tax on an annual basis other than that which we are addressing now. Maybe the Government is going for two hits a year. If it is I would be interested to hear from the Minister who says he has not yet decided the level of the next increase. He is shaking his head. Has he decided the level of the next increase? He shakes his head. Well that is fair enough if the—Hon Ruth Dyson: When is it going to be?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well I tell you what I think it has got only one more chance at it—1 January 2014 will be its last chance. It will probably do it on a holiday. It will be the last Order in Council of the year the one that has the Christmas cake with the Governor-General. It will be Christmas cake for the Governor-General and Mr Brownlee and at the same time the Governor-General will be signing off yet another increase in excise taxes excise duties Budget measures—no it will not be Budget measures because that is a different set of amendments.The other area which I think I will get on to in my next call relates to the main method which is in clause 5. Clause 5 is very important. It really is the operative clause. To be absolutely fair I am sure that it was Mr Joyce not Mr Brownlee who said this made it clearer. We know what Mr Joyce is up to.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I call Julie Anne Genter.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Sorry I was just making sure you had a Minister in the chair.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I do. Thank you.JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I rise to speak on Part 1 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. What clause 4 of Part 1 of this bill does is it says that petrol tax will be going up 3c a litre every year for the next 3 years starting this year. Essentially what I would like to focus on in this part of the bill are the reasons why the Government has to put up the petrol tax.It is very clear from the regulatory impact statement that the Government has to put up the petrol tax because people are driving less. They have not been driving as much for over 5 years now and that is due to a number of factors. It is due to oil prices being much higher. It is due to the fact that we have not seen the anticipated level of economic growth. It is due to the demographic factors like younger generations who are waiting longer to get their driver’s licence and who are less interested in owning a car. They are much more interested in owning a smartphone connecting with people in other ways living in vibrant towns and cities and urban areas where they can walk and cycle and take public transport and not being forced into spending thousands of dollars a year on owning a car maintaining it and taking it in for a WOF. They would like smarter transport options.What has been happening over the past few years we know from data from the Ministry of Transport is that public transport boardings are up. So I would like to explain to the Minister of Transport based on his comments earlier how it is that an economic instrument works. What the Minister said during his speech was that back when petrol was very expensive lots of people took public transport. So would we not expect that given that petrol has become much more expensive—the price of it has doubled in the last decade and the International Monetary Fund has said that we can quite realistically expect it to double again in the next 10 years—even more New Zealanders are going to want to take public transport and are going to want to walk and cycle and leave the car at home if they can? Would we not want to put most of the transport budget into infrastructure that gives New Zealanders the choice—that gives them the ability to avoid paying huge amounts of money on petrol? Would we not want to give them those choices?That is not what the Government is doing. What it is doing is putting up the petrol tax and then saying it is going to put the vast majority of this money that it raises—the revenue that it raises through the petrol tax—into a few motorways that carry a relatively small percentage of vehicle trips about 4 percent of daily vehicle trips collectively on all the roads of national significance that remain to be built. We are putting all that money into a few very expensive solutions that do not actually solve a problem because vehicle trips are down. There are smarter ways to deal with congestion and part of the way that we deal with congestion and safety is actually investing in alternatives so that New Zealanders can take public transport—and walk and cycle—which is a safer way of getting around. It reduces road accidents it reduces the cost of road maintenance and it reduces the need to expand road capacity because it moves more people at peak time for a lower cost. Would that not be a rational economic approach to the future of our transport investment for New Zealand?There are lots of good things about putting up petrol tax. You see the great thing about an economic instrument is that it encourages efficiency. So we could expect if New Zealanders get enough advanced warning that petrol is going to be more expensive in the future and that petrol tax is going to be higher that therefore when they look at buying a new car they will consider that and they might buy more fuel-efficient cars. But the other behaviour that we can expect them to respond with is to drive even less. So why would we be spending the vast majority of the money on a few new motorways when we know that putting up the price of the petrol tax and the oil price increasing anyway is going to lead to fewer people using the road and more people wanting to use public transport?The Minister claims that his Government is spending money on new infrastructure for public transport but if you look at the Government policy statement for that budget it is very very clear. All of the money—85 percent of the money on new infrastructure—is going on a few new motorways. There is a tiny percentage going on local roads. Local roads by the way carry more than 50 percent of all the vehicle trips. It concerns me that the Minister of Transport does not know how money is raised to spend on the transport network—that 50 percent of all the funding that goes to local roads to walking and cycling and to public transport is paid for by ratepayers. So we have got over 50 percent of the traffic going on local roads which are half paid for by ratepayers. There are ratepayers who might decide if they were not going to pay directly that they would rather walk and cycle and take public transport. But they do not have that option because central government is controlling the way all of the money is spent. It is saying to local councils: “We don’t want you to spend money on walking and cycling even though it’s cost-effective. We don’t want you to spend money on local roads because we don’t want you to raise rates but we’re going to put all thismoney into a few new roads.” which do not go by the way from the farm gate to the port. It is a very very bad analogy to say that somehow because you are spending all of the money on a few new motorways that that is going to help freight. Actually a lot of our exporters are moving their freight by rail already and they could do so even more. A lot of freight is on local roads and yet the money available to local roads has been reduced because all of the money is being put into three very expensive duplications of existing motorways that are going to have a very limited marginal return.What we see is the Government putting up the petrol tax and then not providing New Zealanders with options. Normally when you are going to approach a tax like an economic instrument you would say: “OK well we want to encourage efficiency in our oil use. We want to future-proof our economy and our transport system against higher oil prices so we’re going to slowly but steadily increase the petrol tax and we’re going to put all of that money or most of it into alternatives so that people have the option to leave their car at home.” That is going to cost New Zealand Inc a whole lot less money. Although I often hear that roads are paid for by users and therefore it is OK to be spending most of the petrol tax on a few motorways they are not the projects that are going to benefit most road users. They are not the projects that are going to benefit New Zealand’s economy. We know this from the economic studies that have been done on them which were completed nearly a year after the projects were announced. All of the roads of national significance have never been subjected to Treasury’sBetter Business Cases for Capital Proposals guidelines. Why is that? Because if they were it would become very obvious that you could achieve 90 percent of the benefits at a tiny fraction of the cost of building a flash new motorway rather than by just upgrading the existing road and getting some of the commuters off the roads.What National is doing is akin to putting up the tobacco excise tax and then spending all of that money on advertising for cigarettes and cigarette stores. What it is doing is instead of giving people the option to avoid taking the car and to reduce their oil use it is putting up the petrol tax and spending all of the money on projects that increase New Zealand’s oil dependence. It is not a smart approach particularly given our current account deficit problem. Last year New Zealand spent $8 billion importing oil to put in our cars and trucks. New Zealand households and businesses spent over $3 billion on vehicles. We are still importing the same quantity of oil we were importing 10 years ago but we are paying twice as much for it. Our current account deficit which is somewhere around $10 billion is actually quite close to the amount—it is slightly less than the amount—that we are spending importing vehicles and oil which is about $11 billion last year. That amount could increase rapidly if we see another oil price spike. The National Government is really missing an opportunity to reduce the oil dependence of our transport sector by investing in smart alternatives that would have longer-lasting benefits.The Minister put out a press release yesterday I think it was saying that some of the new investment in roads is resulting in travel time savings. Well that is a very short-term approach to it. I mean yes of course as soon you initially build the road it seems like people are able to get there faster. What happens after 3 or 4 years? As the Minister said if you build it they will come. So more people are going to move further away and put more pressure on those roads. Their travel time savings are not there 3 or 4 years after the project is built and it remains to be seen whether or not that traffic would have even happened if you had not built the road. Of course if you make it cheaper and easier to drive more people will drive. That does not mean it is an economically efficient outcome for the economy as a whole. Interestingly there are centrist Governments across the world even right-wing Governments which see the economicopportunity of smart transport and that is what they are investing in. There are cities all over the United States that are investing in walking and cycling because it is good for business and it is good for the economy.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): You would think from listening to the last contribution from Gerry Brownlee that this is a bill that is all about fiscal rectitude that is sensible and that is making just the right amount of money necessary to continue the Government’s sensible programme of road building. Well nothing—nothing—could be further from the truth because this is not only an illegitimate tax grab as we have already said but it is only one of a suite of greedy voracious money-grubbing efforts that this Government and this Minister are making to fund the Government’s out-of-control and bloated motorway building programme.We are talking today about a tax that is going to raise the petrol excise as it says in Part 1 by 3c every year for the next 3 years. If members have got the regulatory impact statement in front of them they will see on page 4 quite an interesting outline of alternative funding options that officials recommended the Minister and Cabinet consider. It sets out a number of possible ways that the New Zealand Transport Agency could get the funding it needs to continue this out-of-control motorway funding programme that we have been talking about. It includes tolling and it includes long-term borrowing. Of course we know it includes public-private partnerships which is how the Government is going to do the Transmission Gully project at the cost of an extra $2.3 billion to the taxpayer. That is $2.3 billion on top of the project cost just so that Gerry Brownlee can try to get Transmission Gully up and running before the Government changes.The Government not only chose the option of this tax grab through the petrol excise but chose half a dozen other options as well to throw more and more taxpayer cash at this motorway building programme. Gerry Brownlee walks into a pie shop and he sees a smoked fish pie a kumara pie a meat pie and a cheese pie. He does not choose just the smoked fish pie because he likes that one the best; he chooses all the pies in the shop. Every single option has been chosen by this Government to throw more and more taxpayer cash at this out-of-control motorway building programme.We have seen public-private partnerships. The Minister asked the officials to go away and come back with a project that could experiment with the public-private partnership model. The Government decided to go ahead with it at the cost of an additional $2.3 billion. What an extraordinary waste. The Land Transport Management Amendment Bill is going to clear the way for more public-private partnerships and more tolling and the Government is giving itself the power which it has never had before to do long-term borrowing for these kinds of motorway transport projects.We are talking about the petrol excise tax and the fact that the Government has chosen one particular way in this bill to refill the coffers that have been so depleted by this motorway building programme but it is not the only way. We need to be aware that the Government is getting extra money from all over the place in order to front-load the motorway building programme to get as many of these gold-plated projects up and running like the Pūhoi to Wellsford “Holiday Highway” and the Kapiti Expressway. It is desperate to get all these projects up and running to rev up the bulldozers and sign the contracts before a Labour-Green Government comes to office at the end of 2014.We are not against all these funding options. We are not against the idea of for instance long-term borrowing. It makes sense to borrow long term to fund major infrastructure projects that will benefit future generations. But we are utterly opposed to a measure like this bill which is pouring taxpayer cash into a transport programme that is unbalanced and unwise. It is going to saddle future generations with more and more debt simply in order to fund the building of white elephant motorway projects that werehand-picked by this Government as colleagues have previously said as part of a political strategy to get National elected in 2008. These projects have never been subjected to Treasury’sBetter Business Cases for Capital Proposals guidelines. Under this Minister and his predecessor the transport sector has been some kind of financial Bermuda Triangle. Vast wheelbarrow-loads of cash have been poured into it with not the slightest bit of the financial accountability that we would expect from every other part of the public sector.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise to take a call in the Committee stage of this Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill which as my most erstwhile colleague from the Greens Julie Anne Genter referred to is the bill that will raise petrol taxes. I am ecstatic actually to be here on a Saturday. I am over the moon—overjoyed at having to be here on a Saturday because this Government has no other way of ramming through all the unnecessary and unwarranted legislation that it needs to in order to enact this latest diabolically awful Budget. This Government is so disorganised and it is such a poor manager of the business of the House just as it is of the economy in general that we are here on a Saturday. We were here until midnight last night and we are here today under urgency cleaning up the National Government’s mess. And for what? So that the Government can put petrol up again so it can bleed the motorists yet again. The poor downtrodden long-suffering motorist is to be the Government’s economic whipping boy yet again. The Government has stuffed up its sums and yet again it is coming to bleed the motorist to make up for its failings.What are we going to get for it? What is the south going to get? What are the provinces going to get? Will we get roads? Will we get new roads? Will we get better roads? Will the parts of the country that actually generate the wealth get to see any of it? Will we see new roads better roads between our farms and our freezing works and between our freezing works and our ports? Or will we be sidelined yet again while the National Government builds roads so that its mates in Auckland can get to their baches more easily on the long weekends?I ask where the Government’s priorities are. Where is the new spending for rural New Zealand? Will we have the South Island loop road completed finally? How many in the Government actually know about the South Island loop road and the plans for it? Will we see a dual carriageway between Christchurch and Dunedin? Will we see an end to one-lane bridges on the West Coast? Or do we not matter? Does the south not matter to this Government ? Do the provinces the regions—do we not matter? The provinces generate the wealth and we would like to see some return from it. The provinces the regions and the scenery in the regions are what attract tourists to this country. We bring tourists to this country in their millions and we make them drive on Third World goat tracks with one-lane bridges.The truth is that this tax is an excuse to cover up the loss of revenue that this Government is going to experience from selling off State assets because this is the flip side to the mixed-ownership model. We talk about 49 percent ownership and 51 percent ownership—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!RICHARD PROSSER: —thank you Mr Chairperson—but what we do not talk about is the revenue that the Government is going to lose by flicking off half of these wealth-generating assets. This tax is an excuse just an excuse to cover up that loss. It is a bad tax part of a bad Budget from a bad Government. Thank you.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Part 1 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill raises taxes on lowerand middle income New Zealanders. It is a direct contradiction of what the National Party said it was going to do before it came into Government. John Key went up and down the country telling anybody who would listen that he would bring taxes down. He would bring taxes down for everybody. He even promised that he was not going to put GST up. That is what John Key said. He promised that he was not going to put GST up and that taxes were going to come down. Well GST went up. It is one of the most regressive taxes that we have. It was put up.Then a whole range of other costs were put up such as ACC. We know that early childhood education costs have gone up. The cost of prescriptions has gone up. The cost of going to the general practitioner has gone up. And of course over time the fuel tax has gone up and once again here we have the fuel tax going up. As Trevor Mallard pointed out in his Committee stage contribution we are not absolutely certain that this increase was required under legislation. In fact the principal Act which is amended by Part 1 of this bill allows for regulations to be made by Order in Council to increase the excise tax on fuels.So why are we here on a Saturday afternoon debating this bill? Well the only logical answer can possibly be that the Government desperately needed these fuel taxes to be considered as part of the Budget to get the Government to that wafer-thin $75 million Budget surplus that we know is 0.1 percent of the total revenue. That is well within any margin of error. At any point in time that surplus could be lost by any one of the errors that could be caused by any one of the Ministers over there. Simon Bridges—Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s smaller than 0.1 percent—much much smaller.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It is much smaller than 0.1 percent. Well maybe that will be a debating point—that we can figure out exactly how small the margin of error is for this. But that is why the Government is increasing taxes on fuel and increasing them by legislation here in Part 1 of this bill.The Government had other options. It could have done it by regulation but it needed this increase to be part of this year’s Budget so that the Government could account for it as part of its surplus which we know it will barely meet and only by searching around for every single possible little cent by increasing costs. The poor old paper boys got it last year. The Government was looking at the car-parks and it was looking at a fringe benefit tax on laptops and iPads. The Government has looked for every possible way to shake middle-income New Zealanders down for every penny they have got because of its unaffordable tax cuts. That is why the Government cannot get to surplus. One of the first things the Government did when it came in was to cut taxes like it promised it was going to but who did it cut taxes for? The Government cut taxes for its mates the people at the top. That is who the Government cut taxes for and then it loads all these extra charges on to people like the increase in the fuel excise tax which is included in Part 1 of this bill. That is what this is all about. It is about making up for those unaffordable tax cuts.Even if the Minister is right and this is genuinely about putting more money into the National Land Transport Fund the reason for that is this Government’s profligacy when it comes to the roads of significance to National—the roads of political significance. They do nothing for growth. It is not about growth. It is not about a growth agenda because a growth agenda would be about an integrated transport network. This is about roads of political significance to the National Party. As we saw fromThe Hollow Men we know that National’s internal emails have been about making sure that all the money that it raises from fuel excise taxes and road-user charges goes into super-highways. National has talked about actually making that part of its policy. Of course it has realised that it cannot quite go that far so what we get is a bill like this that the Minister himself said in his first reading speech—KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): I moveThat the question be now put.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): Mr Chairman—Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s an outrage. Toss him out. It’s disorderly.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: It is an outrage. However for the public out there the Committee stage is the part of the debate where we go through the bill clause by clause and we dig down into the detail. I just want to recognise the contributions that some of my colleagues have made such as Trevor Mallard rightly pointing out that this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill is not even necessary. The Government has a thing called a regulation-making power in the main Act. It does not need to pass this amendment. It can do this by a Cabinet decision an Order in Council in January. So why are we here? We are doing this simply and only because the Government wants to be able to claim a wafer-thin surplus in the Budget. This is a political tool because this is one card of the house of cards that is propping up that wafer-thin line. Without this one without the $600 million extra tax that the Government is magicking in that year without the $1.1 billion corporate tax the $400 million tax receipts and without all of the other “Shon-key” funny money manipulations of the Budget documents none of that would have got there if it had not put this petrol tax rise in as well.I want to acknowledge my colleague Phil Twyford who has quite rightly gone through the list of some of those roads of national significance and made the crystal clear point that they just do not stack up on the traditional benefit-cost ratio. The “Holiday Highway” has got a benefit-cost ratio that is about 1.0. That means they get a dollar back at best for every dollar they put in and that is a complete waste of money. It would be so much better to cut that back to about $300 million not $1.2 billion and spend the $800 million difference on getting that city rail loop in Auckland so that Britomart was not a one-way street that you have to back the trains out of after you have put them there. You could actually run them around in a circle and have a decent commuter system which would make the whole Auckland rail network more efficient. The Government could do that in partnership with the Auckland Council if it could discover the meaning of that word.What about the Kapiti Expressway? I see we have got my colleague Kris Faafoi from Mana here. He has led the charge on that issue. Not even the locals want it. The Government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars that it does not need to spend because it could simply improve the existing arterial road. It is cheaper and it is what the locals want—Hon Trevor Mallard: Nearly as bad as Transmission Gully.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Mr Mallard said it is nearly as bad as Transmission Gully and who would disagree? My colleagues are almost—almost—unanimous on this point.Grant Robertson: Almost.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: So we will leave it to the deputy leader to sort out the Wellington colleagues on that matter.I want to come back to the point that my excellent colleague Iain Lees-Galloway made about the unaffordable tax grab that this measure is part of. This is what they call trickle-up economics right? The money is trickling up from every Kiwi family to the Government’s coffers. It is trickling up not trickling down. The Government is taking from the many and giving to the few. As Mr Lees-Galloway has pointed out the reason that the Government is in this predicament is that one of the first things it did when it came into office was to reward its rich mates by giving unaffordable tax cuts as 40 percent of the money went to the top 10 percent of income earners—40 percent went to the top 10 percent. It was ridiculous. The Government enriched the rich andimpoverished the poor and worse it created a billion-dollar fiscal hole that these tax increases are having to make up for.In my earlier contributions to the first and second readings I went through in more detail the other cards that are required to prop up this bogus surplus in this Budget and they are extensive. It is the cuts of new operating spending in 2014 it is the artificial tax flows and it is the fact that the Government has not declared the cost of the research and development tax credits and there is probably a couple of hundred million in that. Mr Chairperson you are quite rightly drawing me back to the substance of this part of the bill Part 1 but it is gobsmacking that we are here raising everybody’s petrol prices by 9c a litre in a bill that we do not need to be here for because the Government—even if you agree with the idea—has already got the power to do it. So why are we here in a parallel universe? According to our calendar it is still Thursday but for everybody else it is Saturday. Why are we here to pass a bill that does not need to be passed? The answer is that it is only to make the Budget look like it balances. It does not anyway. But if anybody out there in New Zealand wanted proof positive that this Government’s whole Budget is a complete sham this is it. We are here in the weekend passing a bill that is not legally needed.TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Chairman. I rise to speak predominantly around new section 79AC in clause 4 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. I will just pick up on a couple of points that have been made by other speakers predominantly the Minister in the chair the Minister of Transport.The Hon Gerry Brownlee said that this measure was a case of being upfront—upfront—with the taxpayers of New Zealand. All I can say is that for the people of the Rodney Local Board there is nothing upfront about this at all. I would also just point out to Mr Twyford that there is no better way to annoy 54000 voters than to continue to call what is actually an important route into their area a “Holiday Highway”. That road is not going to be paid for by this petrol tax. This petrol tax—3.45c to be exact—is not a 3c increase in the first year and then the next year and the next year. When you put GST on top of it it is 3.45c and that adds up to 10.35c at the end of 2015. All our communities can hope for is that the supermarkets keep owning something to do with the petrol stations because we will need to use our petrol vouchers that we get when we go to New World to be able to afford to get to New World the next time.The interesting thing about the road of national significance which is the extension of the Northern Gateway is this and as much as I admire Ms Genter—and I would like to ask the 52 percent of the voters in New Zealand to have a look at the first comment the condescending chauvinistic comment that Mr Sabin made with regard to Ms Genter’s speech at the second reading—and with all due respect to Ms Genter’s qualifications and her abilities in this area she does not seem to understand that the extension of the Northern Gateway is the only way that the people of the Rodney Local Board area will ever see public transport. It is the only way that there will be any electrified cars going into the Rodney Local Board area. The Wellsford Library has just had electric charge points put in there.But for Mr Brownlee to suggest that this is upfront when you are talking to the people of the Rodney Local Board area is erroneous. This 3c rise for the next 3 years is actually just increasing—[Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member. These exchanges across the cross benches make it very difficult to be able to hear the speaker so please cut them down.TRACEY MARTIN: Kia ora Mr Chair. So this 3c rise every year for the next 3 years is actually just the fourth way that the people of Rodney are going to have to payfor any road they get to get them any public transport. It is the fourth way that the people of Rodney are going to be able to transport their young people out to tertiary institutions. It is the fourth way that the people of Rodney are going to be able to actually live and work in the same place. There seems to be some misunderstanding here. The Rodney Local Board area is in Auckland. So when parties continue to talk about investing in Auckland infrastructure do not forget that Rodney was dragged into it. This is part of that infrastructure improvement. There are 20000 more houses going to be placed inside the Warkworth rural-urban boundary in the next 30 years and those people need to access employment access tertiary education and get themselves out of there. But this 3c will not go anywhere near it. These people already pay an extra $20 a week to get on to what is the Pūhoi to Ōrewa Northern Gateway.Let us get real—let us get real—I say to the Minister in the chair. The largest argument about not having an on and off-ramp at Pūhoi was the fact that it broke the tolling. So there will be another toll on the Pūhoi to Warkworth motorway. My community will pay not only through their normal taxes not only through the current taxes on petrol not only through the toll that they currently pay—David Bennett: Not your community; you’re one of those member-less MPs.TRACEY MARTIN: —at an extra $20 a week to get to work Mr Bennett they will now pay an extra 10.35c by 2015. So this is my community. We will vote against—David Bennett: No it’s not.TRACEY MARTIN: Yes it is Mr Bennett. And you have three members of Parliament—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order!TRACEY MARTIN: I beg your pardon. There are three members of Parliament sitting in this House who represent these people who are going to vote for them to have this fourth increase in respect of the way that they can get on to their State roads. Their roads are not sealed. Their sealing has been pulled from other areas and there is no way that this 3c will do anything—there is no obligation here. The Government has made no commitment to actually increasing the sealing subsidy towards Auckland so that some of our rural roads can be sealed. Mr Sabin might like to go and talk to his Cabinet about that.This 3c will do nothing. It will merely go into a general pool. It will do nothing.ALFRED NGARO (National): I moveThat the question be now put.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): No surprise there—no surprise there. One of the justifications that the Minister in the chair the Minister of Transport gave for this 3c per litre increase over the next 3 years is that he announced it early. He announced it a week before Christmas last year. Gerry Brownlee acting as Santa Claus gave the people of New Zealand a 9c increase on their petrol tax over the next 3 years.Those people who are going to be paying around $45 more per year for their petrol are hard-working—John Hayes: Wow!KRIS FAAFOI: Wow—he does not think it is much. There he goes John Hayes across the Chamber. The MP for Wairarapa does not think that is much. Well he might not think it is much but Mr Hayes when you add that on to—Hon Trevor Mallard: They do in Dannevirke.KRIS FAAFOI: They do in Dannevirke—they do. The people of Wairarapa do—Mr Hayes is not one of them; $45 is nothing to Mr Hayes. But if you add on the $40 more for prescription charges that each Kiwi has to pay and if you add on the increase in GST that the Government brought in Mr Hayes it is a lot of money. So here you go—John Hayes is probably the most out of touch member of Parliament in this House. He thinks that putting up the petrol taxes by $45 a year is just a little bit of cash. It might bea little bit of cash to him but to a lot of Kiwis out there who have been watching this Budget very closely it is a lot of money. I am quite happy for Mr John Hayes to put on the record here in this Parliament that $45 more a year to pay for their petrol is not a lot of money. Mr Hayes you are so so out of touch.Getting back to the clause in Part 1 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): That would be a good idea.KRIS FAAFOI: —that I was referring to I want to look directly at new section 79AC(3) which does set out the yearly 3c increase per litre in petrol excise over the next 3 years. As a number of speakers have said this is all part of an illusion that the Government is trying to create that its books are well in order but the reality is completely the opposite. I think one of the Kiwi traits—a good Kiwi trait—is that when you are trying to spend money or buy something you make sure that you have got the money to pay for it. One of the promises that this Government made around the roads of national significance is that it could afford to pay for it. But by bringing in this petrol tax 3c more per litre for each year over 3 years as it says in Part 1 it is clear to see that this Government did not have a plan to pay for it—it did not have a plan to pay for it at all. So it has been forced to come to this House and bring in a petrol tax of 3c more per litre as it says in Part 1 to help pay for it. But again as many other speakers have said this is all part of the illusion.I just want to put that in the context of the Kapiti Expressway because the Government thinks that the roads of national significance are a good investment for Kiwis. If $45 for each Kiwi motorist is not a lot for Mr Hayes let us see just what kind of return on investment Kiwis are going to get. In terms of the Kapiti Expressway a leaked report by the Beca Group showed that the half a billion dollars spent on the Kapiti Expressway was going to have a benefit-cost ratio of 0.2—0.2. So for every $1 spent the economic benefit to New Zealand is 20c—20c. That is not a lot of money to Mr Hayes. That is a drop in the bucket to Mr Hayes. But that shows just how stupid some of these roads of national significance are. If the National Government thinks that spending $1 on a motorway and getting 20c back for it is a good investment well I hope that quite a few people at home are watching this debate because that is a complete dog of an investment.Going back to that 3c increase per litre and back to the Kapiti Expressway how much money are we talking about? Well we are talking about $515 million. I think that even Mr Hayes would agree that that is quite a lot of money. The return over a 30-year period is just $118 million. In an economic sense that does not make sense.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I think there is a need to focus heavily on this part Part 1 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. I think it is fair to say that it will be important to focus even more heavily on the next part of the bill because that is the grubby bit where the Government gives even more money that it is taking off hard-working hard-taxed New Zealanders back to its mates. That is in the next part and I will get on to that after we have had the division on this one.But I cannot go any further talking about this part of the bill without absolutely refuting the comments made by way of interjection by the person who purports to represent the Wairarapa electorate John Hayes. I am stimulated by that comment to go to Dannevirke on Monday and tell the people that he thinks that $45 extra tax for the average person the average motorist in the Wairarapa is nothing—that to the average motorist in Wairarapa it is nothing.John Hayes: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I did not make any of these comments at all.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Speaking to the point of order—[Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order! I think we could just calm it down a little bit. The reality is that whatever Mr Mallard says is a debatable issue anyway. I call the Hon Trevor Mallard.Hon Member: Stick to the part.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Stick to the part.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Forty-five dollars in the first year $90 in the second year and $135 in the third year and the member who represents one of the biggest rural electorates says that is nothing. He says that is nothing. That is John Hayes.Why does he say it? Because his fuel is paid for—his fuel is paid for. His constituents are not paid for their fuel. It comes out of their income—it comes out of their tax-paid income. It is an outrage—it is an outrage—that the 3c plus GST the 6c plus GST and the 9c plus GST that is to be paid by his constituents he regards as nothing. That is just nonsense. I am going to spend some time in Dannevirke on Monday. I will go to Dannevirke and I will talk to the people in Dannevirke about how their local member says that charging them an extra $45 nearly $1 a week—nearly $1 a week—John Hayes: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I must insist that you ask that speaker to withdraw those comments. I have not made them.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No there is no need for a point of order. This is a debatable issue and the member has put onHansard where he stands.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The point that I wish to raise with you is that these are indeed debatable points and it is open to any member to take a call and elaborate if they think—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.Chris Hipkins: You have not heard my point of order yet Mr Chair. [Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order! There is a point of order on the floor. Silence.Chris Hipkins: The point that I am raising is that Mr Hayes has interrupted Mr Mallard twice in order to make points that he could make in a debate. You as the Chair making a judgment on how long this debate will go for have to weigh up as one of your considerations contributions from both sides. I want an assurance from you that you will regard Mr Hayes’ contributions as being contributions to the debate. The National members are contributing by way of points of order even if they are not taking a call.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No that is not classified—no.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: John Hayes indicated that he thought that these increases were nothing or not much or something like that. [Interruption] “Not much”—I apologise. It was not “nothing”; it was “not much”. Well it might be not much to someone whose travel costs are paid who runs up and down with his massive Volvo and the taxpayer pays for him. The taxpayer pays for him but most of the people who run around Dannevirke Eketāhuna Tīnui Masterton Featherston Pahīatua—it does not go to Wairoa—and Waipukurau all those people who pay for their petrol know that it is significant paying an extra $1 a week per car in their family. And they have got to have a car. Many of them because of the very poor public transport have to have more than one car. It cannot and should not be described as “not much”—it should not be described as that.Getting back to the detail in this particular amendment what this allows for is an increase in the first year of 5.9 percent. But the 5.9 percent does not include the GST. Is this honesty? Is this honesty in a regulatory impact statement? Is this honesty in a regulatory impact statement? To be fair to the Government because of its massiveupward track in percentage terms in the impact it is only 5.3 percent in the third year but that is as we have heard over a 10 percent increase over the period of time.But I will go back to a point that I think needs to be focused on by the Committee. That is—and I do not want to sound like Sir Geoffrey Palmer but still—we are the fastest lawmakers in the West. We have only —Dr CAM CALDER (National): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes51New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 10; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat Part 1 be agreed to.Ayes72New Zealand National 59; Green Party 10; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes40New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 7; Independent: Horan.Part 1 agreed to.Part 2 Consequential amendmentsHon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): This particular part of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill refers mainly but not only to the question of refunds. What it does is increase the rate of refunds to people who are entitled to them. The regulation refers to section 41 of the principal Act which in this case is the Land Transport Management Act. There is a group of individuals and companies that is exempt from paying the taxation that other people pay in this area.The first point that I want to question the Minister of Transport on is the rate. I see that the rate of refund is 3.45c which is a 3c increase in the goods and services tax. That is the amount that is refunded. The question that I want to ask the Minister is whether this is a deliberate over-refunding. Someone who pays the extra 3c and GST and gets the GST as a deduction are they not double-dipping?What this does is exempt people. We will use the example of the few people in the electorate of Mr Hayes who do get a refund in the area. There are a number of his wealthy National Party colleagues National Party members who do get a refund by way of using the farm vehicles—or more likely the farm trust vehicles—for transport. These people will have an increase of 3c plus GST and 6c plus GST and 9c plus GST under the part of the bill that has just been passed. What happens is that they will be able to apply for a refund if they are in the exempt group. I think there is debate about whether they should be in the exempt group or not—and I will say just by way of an aside that the exempt group is sometimes quite broad. For example there are an unusual number of what are known as “Queen Street tractors” that spend their time around the halls of residence of Dunedin students. These are trust-owned vehicles. The cards that are used to drive them belong to trusts that are associated with farms or with other companies. It is a clear tax rort. It is a matter of keeping the general rate of tax and sometimes—and it is a particular outrage—these students are entitled to student allowances because of the trust arrangements of the family finances whereas peoplefrom normal working class families are not because they happen to declare their income and pay their tax in an appropriate way.The point that I want to get back to and the question that I want to ask the Minister is why it is 3c in the first part of the bill and then 3.45c in Part 2. I can accept that people pay the 3.45c extra. They pay at the bowser or generally actually more often what happens is that there is a delivery for the farm vehicles which then gets hosed into the family car. That is the approach that tends to happen. I have spent quite a bit of time in rural areas. Once or twice I might have been paid in petrol myself but I would never confirm that. It was a long time ago when I was young.Grant Robertson: That was a long time ago.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: That is right. We used to have to crank the cars at that particular stage to get them started.Carol Beaumont: Ha ha!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Do not laugh Carol Beaumont. I have cranked a few cars in my time to get them going.Grant Robertson: Move on.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Behave yourself. The important point and the one that I want to focus on in this call and the next one—but there is a further point to make in my following calls—is that people pay 3.45c a litre including the GST. They get a 3.45c refund but that is not GST-inclusive. So people pay 3c plus GST and get a 3.45c refund but the GST that they have paid is deductible against their GST liability.The question that I have is whether or not we have a case of Bill English whether we have “Double Dipton”—“Double Dipton”—being reinforced as part of this bill. I would be interested in the learned—no sorry; he is not a lawyer—the honourable Minister’s view on this matter as to whether in fact we are getting any double-dipping here.There are some areas that we will not argue with as far as this part is concerned. Overall it is a mixture. For example it does include a refund for search and rescue vehicles including boats. Well I think that if a vehicle is genuinely used only for that purpose or if petrol is put into it for search and rescue purposes then that is something that is acceptable. One of the questions I have is whether foreign fishing boats come into this category or not.Grant Robertson: I think they do.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well I am not sure. I am not sure of the exact fuel that they use. Part of the question is whether it is appropriate to exempt fuel that is used for commercial purposes other than fuel in a motor vehicle. I think there is a dilemma here. I think that if the Government is genuine about closing the loopholes then in fact it would be better to look at some of these uses under section 5(2) of the Land Transport Management (Apportionment and Refund of Excise Duty and Excise-Equivalent Duty) Regulations 2004. The other point is that it says in section 5(3) that “Nothing in this regulation applies to any motor spirits compressed natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas”—does anyone use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) any more? Is LPG still—Iain Lees-Galloway: A few taxis.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: A few taxis still use it—“used as fuel for a motor vehicle that is mainly used in vehicle races or trials or other sporting events.” Well is that fair? I mean why can the farmer get a refund but the professional racing driver cannot get one? Either it is part of your business or it is not.I think what we are in danger of here is reinforcing some inequities in this legislation. I think we do need to look at the amendments that were made on 29 March 2007 and their relevance in this particular case. I think that one of the dangers we have when we have this sort of approach to decision making is that we get the danger of inconsistencies. The point I was making earlier is that we have been described in thepast as the fastest lawmakers in the West. We are unicameral. We do not have a second Chamber and that is why we should be really careful when we do anything that affects ordinary Kiwis either by way of regulation or under urgency. And the trouble with this is that it appears to be doing both.We appear to be passing legislation in this House that affects regulations that overrides and changes regulations and we are doing it under urgency. And with all due respect to members opposite I am not sure that we have had any evidence during this extended sitting day of a level of competence on the part of the Government to get the legislation right. It is something that is pretty basic. Thank you Mr Sabin the former policeman for nodding and agreeing with me. I hope he is not going to sleep.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): I want to pick up—Brendan Horan: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. As an independent MP I am permitted to speaking only during—[Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! While there is a point of order on the floor it is to be heard in silence.Brendan Horan: I am permitted to speak in only the Committee stage. I was denied the opportunity to speak on Part 1 earlier in the Committee stage. I would ask you to consider that in the interests of democracy New Zealand actually hears an independent voice and that I get an opportunity to speak in this Committee stage.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you for drawing that to my attention Mr Horan.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Although the member has a valid point I think that it has generally been regarded as disorderly to disagree with the Chair in that way and especially to interrupt the contribution of another member as Mr Horan did. I think—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): He is new.Hon Trevor Mallard: —that if he called out a little bit louder when members are going for the call someone might hear him.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.GRANT ROBERTSON: I want to pick up where my colleague Mr Mallard left off. We are debating Part 2 and in particular I am looking at clause 7 which institutes new regulation 6A—and now I am just checking on the Attorney-General’s well-being over there which is perhaps not so great just at the moment.Dr Rajen Prasad: He’s gone. He’s gone.GRANT ROBERTSON: He is gone—he is completely gone. That is terrific—[Interruption] Oh there he is. Very good. So just for Mr Finlayson’s benefit I say that we are looking at clause 7 which institutes the new regulation 6A into the Land Transport Management (Apportionment and Refund of Excise Duty and Excise-Equivalent Duty) Regulations 2004. As Mr Mallard said we are looking at who can get a refund under section 6A. I think the Minister in the chair may need some assistance now as well. [Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Have we finished?GRANT ROBERTSON: Thank you Mr Chair. The Minister appears to need some assistance at the moment. What we are looking at here is who can get a refund and what those refunds are. I think it is worthwhile—given that the many members of the public who will be glued to their televisions and radios listening to this debate will not be aware of exactly how this process works—Hon Trevor Mallard: No you’re not allowed to refer to them—that’s a point of order.GRANT ROBERTSON: Ha ha! People who are interested in this debate will not necessarily be aware of how the excise duty refund works. In this new regulation 6Athere will be a rate of refund of 3.45c on 1 July in 2013 2014 and 2015. Mr Mallard has already explained that that 3.45c effectively equates to the 3c that is being increased plus GST and we have the open question of whether or not there is double-dipping here if these same people will be claiming GST back at the same time as having that included in their refund. We have not heard from the Minister of Transport an answer to that but it is important to know who is actually entitled to this refund because that goes to the Labour Party’s major concern about this whole bill.So who is entitled to a refund? Generally speaking according to the New Zealand Transport Agency fact sheet on these matters it is vehicles that are used mainly for commercial purposes particularly agricultural vehicles and some mobile machinery. So as Mr Mallard has already made the point once again what we see here is further benefit for those at the upper end of the income spectrum—further benefit for those more politically aligned to the National Party.We go right back to the beginning of the whole way in which National ended up with the roads of national significance. We know from the emails helpfully released as part ofThe Hollow Men book and documentary that the National Party then in Opposition made a political decision to create the roads of national significance not because they were the best transport solutions for New Zealand but because politically that would work for it. Maurice Williamson Don Brash and John Key—they were all involved in that email exchange and that is how National ended up with this policy. So once again here in Part 2 we see the next stage of the politicisation of this point with the next stage being that those who generally benefit from these refunds are those using commercial vehicles.Mr Mallard made a very good point because the exclusions that the New Zealand Transport Agency lists are any motor vehicle that is principally used in vehicle races trials or other sporting events. That seems overly harsh on the rally drivers of New Zealand and those who are working to earn a living from using their vehicle—Hon Trevor Mallard: On the track.GRANT ROBERTSON: —on the track—in a commercial way. So I do not think that the Government can necessarily sit here comfortably and say that this is a fair exclusion and a fair refund process. It is a refund process that goes directly towards the very people who have benefited from the rest of this Budget from the National Government.Seeing this come back in the way that it does in Part 2 reinforces for us that this legislation is not really about how we fund transport in New Zealand; it is about the overall picture that this Government is trying to paint when it comes to its supposed economic management. It is about the Government trying to cover over the fact that we have an economy that is not growing that we have jobs promises that are not being met by this Government and that the only way that it can get itself to its political surplus is to ensure that it puts up petrol tax which as we know will be borne fundamentally by those people on modest incomes—the people who are already struggling. If you are on an income where you can throw it through a trust then you will be able to get the refund but if you keeping going this way—Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I would like to acknowledge both of our colleagues who have contributed here. Mr Chairman you are ruling with an iron rod in this debate and we hope that there will be sufficient—[Interruption] That too. I need not come back on Tuesday perhaps. But it is an adjournment week so hopefully he will forget if you do not write too much in theHansard Mr Mallard.It is interesting how the most arcane details of legislation often provide the greatest insight. Colleagues have rightly pointed out that the refunds here the entitlements apply to agricultural and commercial vehicles. It is a bit like what they used to say: “Cutout the middle man; vote for Treasury.” Under this National Government it is “Cut out the middle man; vote for the other English guy vote for Federated Farmers.” This is really a Federated Farmers set of exemptions.The other exemption that is particularly important is the exemption for commercial vessels. Of course we have got a problem at the moment and I want to commend the Government for seeking to extend New Zealand flagging to foreign charter vessels in the New Zealand exclusive economic zone. At the moment those vessels are not subject to fuel excise at all. They are not even subject to GST. Their crews are not subject to PAYE and as many New Zealanders will know by the horrendous reports of abuse in parts of the industry—in parts of it; by no means in all of it—they are not subject to New Zealand labour law either. So I commend the Government for trying to fix that up and hopefully that will bring all of those vessels and therefore their fuel within the tax net.Mr Mallard raised an important technical point which was around the quantum of the exemptions and the refunds. In doing a quick scan for other precedents we have also picked up another similar example where it may well be that the Government needs to take remedial action. That is in respect of KiwiSaver for non-residents. Under the Income Tax Act that can be clawed back if someone has received a tax credit while overseas and failed to notify. But what is not clawed back is the interest or use of money or any capital appreciation based on those tax credits. It is a very similar situation to this one.I think the lesson here is that here is a Government that is passing legislation for the sole and utter purpose of trying to make its Budget appear balanced because without the $700 million - odd that this will deliver by 2015 it would not be within a bull’s roar of a so-called balanced Budget. It is not anyway because earlier in this debate we have illustrated some $3 billion worth of shystership of shonkiness of—well there are lots of other technical terms that spring to mind but let us just say that the numbers do not add up. They do not come close to adding up. But the Government needs this Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill even though it has the power to do the same job by regulation without detaining Parliament at $10000 an hour or whatever it is. We are here on a Saturday in New Zealand time trying to pass legislation that is unnecessary.In Part 2 of the bill we are further complicating life by creating a possible interaction between regulations that do not need to be there. We have asked the Minister in the chair the Minister of Transport to take a call and explain if he can which is by no means certain whether the clawback refund provisions apply appropriately. If he can address himself to the commercial vessels issue if he is able to also tell us whether the precedent around the KiwiSaver tax credits is an appropriate analogy and if he can tell us whether the Government intends to take remedial action on that matter as well that would be extremely useful.It may be that in doing so he could come up with some other reason why we are here on a Saturday afternoon passing legislation that is legally unnecessary. There may be something although I cannot think of anything that the Opposition has overlooked. There may be a legitimate reason why the Government is doing it; it is just that none of us can see it because as my colleague Mr Mallard has pointed out there is a regulation-making power that could have achieved exactly the same outcome on 1 July. The Minister is I think shaking his head; he may be breathing but I think he is shaking his head. If he is I would invite him to tell the Committee and the country why that is not the case because that is what the country believes Minister. The country believes that you are passing this for what Mr Joyce would call optic reasons—to make a balanced Budget appear when otherwise it would not.BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): Part 2 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Billdeals with refunds and I would like for us to consider why there should be refunds and who gets the refunds. For the many New Zealanders who are watching today and also for those New Zealanders who are overseas and also other people who are watching on I would just like to go through the main drivers of petrol and diesel prices so they get an idea. One we have the cost of oil and then the refined product. Two we have the exchange rate which also affects the price of petrol and diesel; however it seems to go up quickly but when our exchange rate is high it always seems to come down very slowly at the pump. Three we have Government taxes and levies. Currently around 62c per litre is made up of this Government’s taxes and levies and that is exclusive of GST. Diesel uses the very unfair road-user charges that we saw rushed through last year. If we have a look at some of the price rises I believe in April of this year we see that unleaded 96 cost around $2.13 a litre and in May it was $2.17 a litre. We have these price rises that are separate from the taxes that this Government is putting on.What does that mean to the person in the province or actually the average ordinary person at home who is trying to feed their family? It puts extreme strain on that family because everything goes up. Food prices go up. How are the normal mums and dads who are on the minimum wage—and I might say that it is disgraceful for any person who has worked in a job for more than 2 years to be on the minimum wage—going to be able to afford the other increases that occur when petrol goes up? Perhaps we could consider giving refunds to every mother in New Zealand or every father in New Zealand for those school lunches that are going to cost more and for the food in the supermarket that is going to cost more.This week the Prime Minister stood up and instead of saying that 39000 houses would be consented in Auckland in the next 3 years he said that 39000 houses will be built. Well with the increase in taxes those houses are going to cost much more and I would make the prediction that by this time next year the average price of a house in Auckland will be $1 million not $750000. So whom do we give the refunds to? Do we give them to sports teams? One of the great things about New Zealand is the ability for our children to be able to play sport and to see New Zealand. But with these increases how are the parents of those children going to be able to afford to get them to the sports grounds? Perhaps we could give refunds to sporting teams. Perhaps we could give refunds to coaches because coaches need to get to training. They need to train the young ones.This is all part of the New Zealand psyche and one small increase has massive long-term ramifications for the average New Zealander. I would ask that this Committee consider giving refunds to sports teams to sports coaches and to parents of children because what we need to do is be fair in this country. We have a situation where farmers may get a refund and so they should or orchardists may get a refund and so they should too but we as average New Zealanders have to pay that cost at the shop front.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I moveThat the question be now put.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very appreciative of my first call in fact of what I suspect will be many on the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. I suspect I have got a few other names for that—Hon Trevor Mallard: Part 2.CHRIS HIPKINS: —which we are going to talk about in a moment. I am aware that we are talking about Part 2 Mr Mallard—just hold your horses; we will get to that. We are talking about Part 2 at the moment the refund provision that exists within this legislation otherwise known as once again National looking after its mates—looking after the people who can get the refund—while other people such as the regular hard-working New Zealanders who pay the extra fuel tax who were promised that life would get better under National and that they would pay less tax under National do not have the access probably to the provisions in this particular part. They are going to end up paying the extra tax and they are going to feel disappointed and let down.Before the 2008 general election Maurice Williamson the National Party’s then transport spokesperson went around the country telling New Zealanders that if the National Party did a good job it would not need to put up fuel taxes. The levies would not need to go up. Maurice Williamson was busy saying that to New Zealanders before the 2008 general election. How many times has this levy gone up since National came into Government? That means that Gerry Brownlee has been a spectacular failure as a Minister of Transport just like Steven Joyce was before him.It just shows whom the National Party is interested in looking after. It is not interested in looking after the ordinary hard-working New Zealanders who are going to have what is it $45 extra a year—Iain Lees-Galloway: Yes after year 1.CHRIS HIPKINS: —in year 1 on their motoring bill—Hon Trevor Mallard: $90 in year 2.CHRIS HIPKINS: —$90 extra in year 2—Hon Trevor Mallard: $135.CHRIS HIPKINS: —and $135 extra in year 3.Hon Trevor Mallard: Plus compounding.CHRIS HIPKINS: That is right; it is compounding. These costs will continue to go up for ordinary everyday families who are already struggling to meet rising costs under this National Government because despite promising New Zealanders that the tax burden on them was going to decrease in fact ordinary everyday working New Zealanders are saying that the tax burden on them has gone up under National—increased GST increased fuel tax increased student loan repayments if they have got a student loan and many other increases that they are facing. So many other costs and expenses have gone up for ordinary everyday Kiwis under this National Government. They will not benefit from the refunds that are available in this particular part of the bill which we are debating before Parliament—Part 2 of the debate the consequential amendments that we are talking about.This is yet again another bill that is going through all stages of Parliament under urgency. I suspect given our previous experience of the earlier bills that we have been debating under this urgency motion that there will be some future amendment to it when National realises it has completely stuffed it up. There is probably a drafting error or some other mistake in it because there has been a mistake in just about every other bill that the House has been debating under this urgency motion. I think New Zealanders are going to want to know why they are paying this extra fuel tax and why they are not getting the ability to access refunds under Part 2 of this.I am looking at what this extra money is going to be funding—the roads of significance to National. That is what these levies are going to be going towards. I know for example regarding the Kapiti Expressway that there is huge debate about exactly whether or not that is good value for money. Many people do not think it is and in fact a huge group of residents on the Kapiti coast think that it is going to split the community in half by driving a massive four-lane highway between Coastlands the main shopping area of Paraparaumu and the beach and the shopping area. It is basically going to drive a massive four-lane highway between those parts of the community on what was always designed to be a local road. It has been on the books for many many years and the community expectation in Kapiti was always that that road the Kapiti Expressway was going to be a two-lane local road. And yes there would be upgradesto State Highway 1 but they were not expecting that the Government would go and co-opt what was going to be a local road and whack a massive four-lane highway right through the heart of that community which is what this Government is proposing to do.Of course the road will not be designed to benefit local motorists because there will be very few on-ramps and off-ramps off it; it is designed basically to move traffic through that area without having to stop and without the trucks having to slow down. It is not designed in any way with the local residents of the Kapiti coast in mind and that is the sort of project that all New Zealand motorists are now going to be paying more for. I think that there are some real questions the Government has got to answer. But of course we are not hearing anything from the Government.All those National backbenchers over there have absolutely nothing to say on that. When they were in Opposition the National backbench had a lot to say about transport—Dr CAM CALDER (National): I moveThat the question be now put.SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 2 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill because this is where we find out who gets away with it. Who by way of a refund does not have to pay the tax that is propping up the National Government’s supposed surplus? Well here is the part where it panders to its mates of course. Part 2 is where it is pandering to its mates. While I am talking about panders that is actually what Gerry Brownlee resembled when my colleague Trevor Mallard asked him a question about why the Government was not doing this by regulation and he actually put it to Mr Brownlee that later on the Government would bring in regulations to take the taxes up even higher. Mr Brownlee sat there like a giant panda and did not respond. I have seen giant pandas that have been more communicative than the Minister of Transport was when that issue was put to him by Mr Mallard.But back to Part 2—Hon Trevor Mallard: Hey have we got our panda yet?SUE MORONEY: Yes well—Hon Trevor Mallard: Has John Key’s panda delivered yet?SUE MORONEY: I think we have got the panda bit well and truly inHansard now. So Part 2 tells us that it is people who have agricultural equipment and commercial vehicles who are going to escape paying for this illusion of a Budget surplus from the National Government. Of course that is National pandering to its mates but it does not get away with it completely.The other part that is propping up this illusion of a Budget surplus for the National Government is its keeping ACC levies higher than they need to be. Of course one of the ACC levies that is higher than it needs to be at the moment—and will remain so for 2 more years under this Budget from National—is the one on the motor vehicle account. So that is the registration that everyone pays on their ACC levy. Even though some people will get a refund on their petrol tax in Part 2 they will still be paying on average up to $134 more a year on the registration for their motor vehicle. Not only are they going to be paying for the National Government’s promise of a Budget surplus every time they go and fill up at the gas station—every time New Zealanders fill up at the petrol station I want them to stop and remember that they are paying through their pockets for that Government’s promise of a Budget surplus because that is clearly what is happening in this bill. In Part 2 some of them get it refunded but it is not the ordinary New Zealander who gets that refund; it is people who own agricultural or commercial vehicles. I think that tells us just exactly where the priorities of this National Government lie.The Government is of course charging every business and every worker in this country more than it needs to in ACC levies every week through their pay packets as well. That is the other way it is propping up its Budget surplus. Up to $2 billion more a year than ACC said that it needed in order to keep its scheme going is being charged by that Government to every single worker and business in New Zealand. But of course Part 2 of this bill tells us that although that is happening for every worker and every business in New Zealand when it comes to petrol tax some of those businesses—not the workers but some of the business owners—will be getting a refund under Part 2 of this bill. They are people who operate agricultural and commercial vehicles. They are going to get—well actually we think they might be double-dipping because not only will they get the 3c and then the 6c and then the 9c back for every year but also under Part 2 they are going to get the GST back on that.I think it is a very salient point that has been raised by this side of the House about whether that is double-dipping or not. I would ask the Minister in the chair to get to his feet and clarify that issue. No more giant panda impersonations Mr Brownlee—up on your feet. Tell us about the GST in Part 2. Is it double-dipping or not? That is important because you are pandering—sorry not you Mr Chair of course. You are not pandering but Mr Brownlee is pandering to his mates in this part. We need to know whether he is pandering to them in a way where they are able to double-dip on the GST refund or not. This is important because it is only a small number of New Zealanders who get to use the refund in Part 2. It is not your everyday New Zealander. It is not the families whom we on this side of the House are concerned about who are using their private vehicles day in and day out taking children to school taking them to sports events and getting to work. All of those everyday uses of vehicles are not going to actually get this refund under that part.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): I moveThat the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am going to call Mr Lees-Galloway.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): That is an excellent choice. I think that is a fantastic choice. Given that there are more senior members than me seeking the call maybe they will get the call at the next opportunity. Part 2 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill lays out the consequential amendments to the Land Transport Management (Apportionment and Refund of Excise Duty and Excise-Equivalent Duty) Regulations 2004. Essentially what this does is it gives a refund predominantly to farmers but also to other particular vehicle users who use their vehicles off-road. It seems a little bit anachronistic actually because in the schedule we have a detail of all the vehicles that are exempt vehicles. Motor vehicles used only on roads solely in connection with agricultural operations farmers’ vehicles used solely in connection with agricultural operations tractors or traction engines farmers’ tractors agricultural contractors’ tractors—so lots of talk about tractors there. The principle here is that if a vehicle is used principally off-road then it should not be paying fuel excise tax because fuel excise tax is used to pay for roads and public transport and other transport initiatives. These off-road vehicles are not using transport infrastructure because they are predominantly on the farm.I think it is strange that some are missing here. Vehicles that are predominantly used in forestry that do not go on public roads and maybe vehicles that are used predominantly in mining that do not go on public roads as well I would have thought would be covered by these types of exemptions and yet they are missing. What appears to have happened at some point in history is that probably Federated Farmers has got in the ear of the National Party and said: “Hey we need these exemptions.” so we have got these really specific exemptions when the principle here is quite sound.Hon Trevor Mallard: They’ve always been exempt.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: From tax in general? The principle here is a strong one though which is that vehicles that are used predominantly off-road should not have to pay fuel excise tax. That is how road-user charges work. So the diesel does not carry the road-user charge and therefore tractors that are fuelled by diesel predominantly work off-road—Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s inconsistent.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well that may be. I mean there is inconsistency here Mr Mallard; you are absolutely right. Maybe there would be room for consistency by moving in one direction or the other. But it just seems bizarre that it is specifically about farmers and I do not know whether that is the relationship with the National Party or not. You know we have perhaps raised whether these exemptions can be rorted but all the people who are using this exemption are working hard on their farms to produce the produce that goes to market for sale. It is still of course the backbone of our economy—our agricultural sector—and these people are working really really hard. What they want of course is a decent roading infrastructure that can actually get those products from the farm to the market. It is all well and good—Hon Trevor Mallard: A decent railway interchange.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: And a decent railway interchange as well Mr Mallard. It is all well and good to have roads of national significance running up and down the spine of New Zealand but if we have not got decent roads going from the farm or the forest or the mine to those roads of national significance then what is the point of having these gold-plated unaffordable roads up and down the middle of the country if the local roads are not up to scratch? I suggest that John Hayes go and talk to the Mayor of Tararua District Council Roly Hayes. He is in Dannevirke interestingly enough. He might want to go and see—John Hayes: Ellis.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Roly Ellis sorry. You are absolutely right—Roly Ellis. He wants to go and talk to him. I suggest that he go and talk to Roly Ellis about his concerns about the fact that his local roads are predominantly gravel roads. They are not sealed. What Tararua is really looking forward to is when a considerable amount of forestry matures and comes on stream for logging and that will be a significant source of revenue for that district. But the roads are predominantly gravel roads. They are not decent roads prepared to carry the trucks that will carry that important produce—the logs—from the forest to the Port of Napier or to the roads of national significance or to the railway line that will get them to market.So it is all well and good for the National Party to focus on its political roads but as for the people who are working hard and getting the exemptions laid out here in Part 2 they can work as hard as they like but this Government is not working for them. This Government is not working for them because what this bill does is tax New Zealanders to pay for those roads of political significance. Try as they might even if they get these exemptions laid out in Part 2—and they are significant exemptions at 3.45c per litre—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes73New Zealand National 59; Green Party 11; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes40New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 7; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat Part 2 be agreed to.Ayes73New Zealand National 59; Green Party 11; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes40New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 7; Independent: Horan.Part 2 agreed to.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I deliberately waited until you had put the vote in order not to be sort of disorderly but I do want to ask you whether you can explain your reasoning with regard to the latest set of calls. I think we all know that it is the discretion of the Chairman as to who is called. I am not going to argue with that. But it does seem to me to be particularly surprising that the normal rules of seniority within a party were not used on this particular occasion. My colleague who is the fourth-ranked member of the Labour caucus and sits on the front bench made repeated attempts to get the call but a number of us more junior members—as far as the current seniority arrangements are concerned—were called including right at the end I think the youngest member of the Labour Party caucus Mr Lees-Galloway.Hon Member: He’s the spokesperson.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It might be the fact that he is the spokesperson and you are recognising that Mr Chairman. But I would like an explanation as to the criteria that you are now using because at first glance it does look a bit awful.CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): My question will be very brief in regard to this. I wonder whether you could elucidate for us in fact that somebody being the primary spokesperson on an issue for a party is one of the factors that you consider in making a decision around who you call in a debate such as this. I am aware for example that Mr Lees-Galloway was seeking the call for quite some time before he got one on the debate on this particular part. He is the Labour Party’s primary spokesperson on the matter.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just point the member to Speaker’s ruling 25/5: “How a party utilises its speaking and questions rights is an internal matter for that party to determine.” I can say that in recognising Mr Iain Lees-Galloway he is the spokesperson for the Labour Party and so he took precedence in that particular instance. I am quite happy with the decision I made. Also of course the Chairperson is the sole judge.Clauses 1 and 2The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Where were we? The question is that clauses 1 and 2 stand part. I call the honourable member Grant Robertson the deputy leader of the Labour Party.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): Thank you Mr Chair and thank you for recognising and remembering that. I am currently looking in this contribution at clause 1 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill which is the title clause. I intend to come back and perhaps make a further contribution on the commencement date because there is a lot to say about that.The question of the title goes to an important matter around this bill that the Labour Party has been raising during this debate. It is currently called the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. That simply will not do because it does not accurately describe the purpose of this bill. There is one thing in here that is accurate and that is the word “Budget”. This is about the Budget for the National Party. It is about trying to justify or trying to make claim to getting the books into surplus. As has been established in earlier stages of this debate we have not heard from the Government a true justification of its surplus beyond how it has fiddled with and fudged the books.I would argue that a more accurate title for this bill would be the “Customs and Excise (Fake Surplus) Bill” because that is actually what it is. It is about a piece of legislation that contributes—along with raising petrol taxes in this bill there are the ACC levies and the other tax changes that have been made by this Government that have benefited the top 10 percent of income earners; all of those things have contributed—to the fact that this Government is now claiming a surplus a wafer-thin margin of error - level surplus which it will get as a result of increasing petrol taxes increasing ACC levies and some magic numbers that will appear in the Budget in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 years. There are magic figures of $400 million here—$1.1 billion from corporate tax which suddenly disappears again a year or so later. This is a fake surplus. That is why this bill should be called the “Customs and Excise (Fake Surplus) Bill”.It could also be called the “Customs and Excise (Bogus Budget Balance) Bill”. I like that—alliteration is good. I think it makes law interesting if we can have alliteration. It is a bogus Budget balance when one has to take into account this range of other things that are contributing to the surplus other than actually growing the economy creating jobs and doing the kinds of things that we would like to see in a Budget and it is bogus to see it here.I do also want to refer to another title that could be put in place for this bill that would actually argue that this is the “Customs and Excise …”—and there are a number of options here but I think the “Customs and Excise (Roads of Political Significance) Bill” is probably the most accurate. If we are to take the Government at its word that this bill is about the National Land Transport Fund and getting the money there—Hon Trevor Mallard: You’d be stupid. You’d be stupid.GRANT ROBERTSON: Well you would be stupid Mr Mallard but for now let us pretend we are stupid. That may not be too difficult for you so we will see how we go! But let us pretend that we are stupid and say that actually this is a time in which the Government says that yes it needs this money for the National Land Transport Fund. But what is that for? It is quite simply for the Government’s political choices about where it believes roading should go.We have established already on this side of the Chamber—without any response from the other side I might add—that this is the end result of the National Party’s decision when in Opposition to adopt a roading policy that was not about what was best for the transport infrastructure of New Zealand but was simply about what was best for the party electorally. That is what Don Brash and Maurice Williamson cooked up. That is what John Key took on from that. Maurice Williamson paraded it around the country and promoted it as well. That is what Gerry Brownlee has accepted now.These roads of significance to National or roads of political significance should be mentioned in the title because that would be a more accurate reflection of what is actually being put in front of this Committee today. To simply call it something benign like the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill does not actually capture what this is. In fact if they really just wanted to go down that path it should be called the “Raising Petrol Taxes Bill”. We have not heard throughout this debate an honest contribution from the National Party members to say: “Actually we are raising taxes. That is what we are doing.” There is a reason for that. We could also call it the “Customs and Excise (Breaking National’s Promises Again) Bill” because it promised not to raise taxes. It went around the country promising not to raise taxes and yet that is precisely what this bill does.We have been through a lot of legislation over the last few days in this House and the contributions of National MPs have been non-existent. National MPs have simply not got up and been prepared to justify to their constituents and prepared to say to their constituents: “Yes we’re raising taxes. We are putting taxes up. We are taking money out of your pockets because we want to come up with a bogus surplus.” That would be honest if the National Party MPs stood up and said that. That would be an honest title for this bill.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): It is a pleasure to take a call. I have been struggling throughout to get a call on this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill.Louise Upston: Diddums!ANDREW LITTLE: Well wait until you hear what I have got to say because I think you will find it very interesting.We know what this bill does. It artificially inflates the duties now collected off petrol and that is in the context of a Government that is spending billions upon billions upon billions of dollars on a small number of roads. It has chosen the roads of National Party significance—the roads of national significance—and the problem with that is of course that provincial roads roads in the regions are being absolutely starved of any attention at all. So when it comes to the title of this bill it might more accurately be called the “Customs and Excise (Deprivation of Regional Roads) Bill”.I want to relay one particularly important example and that is State Highway 3 in Taranaki. You do not hear much of it in Parliament these days but I think it is very important to raise it. State Highway 3 in Taranaki is in an increasingly parlous state. In the mid almost south Taranaki area is a stretch of State Highway 3 encompassing a bridge called the Normanby Bridge. It is arguably one of the most dangerous stretches of road—it is only a 50 metre or so stretch—in the country. It has had four fatalities in about 2 years. There have been repeated accidents on that stretch of road and the local regional council is struggling to get the New Zealand Transport Agency interested in it. It cannot get funding to operate that piece of road and make it safer. The best the New Zealand Transport Agency can do is put up a couple of signs either side of the bridge saying “Slow down”. But it is a dog-leg of a bridge it is a dog-leg piece of road and it needs to be realigned.Then comes the real kicker and that is the road north out of New Plymouth. The New Zealand Transport Agency at the behest of this Government to save its political skin in the last election allocated $15 million to fix a bridge—yet another bridge—just north of New Plymouth. It is another stretch of road of about 50 metres. There is another 100 kilometres of road that is highly problematic dangerous and the bane of truck drivers in and out of north Taranaki and has been for a long time. It is at the point now where all that the New Zealand Transport Agency will do is fund resealing the bits of the road between the fog lines. It does not fund the upgrading and the repair andmaintenance of the shoulders of the road and it is becoming more and more dangerous. Two particular stretches—the Awakino Gorge and Mount Messenger—have both had report after report after report prepared on them and we cannot get any money spent on them.You do not hear anything about it from any other member who comes to this House who represents or has a connection with that area. There is only one member in this House who comes and talks about that stretch of road and those issues—the issues affecting Taranaki—and that is me. This bill and raising the excise on petrol yet again without any commitment to fixing this very important piece of road just demonstrates the short-sighted nature of this Government and its so-called traffic and transport plan. It is a very sensitive issue—a growingly sensitive issue you might say—in Taranaki and this bill will do nothing for it. The title of the bill should properly reflect the negligence and the abdication of responsibility that this bill along with this Government’s total traffic and transport plan actually represents. It is a denial of attention proper attention to regional roads and to the provinces which are screaming out for attention.The last major piece of road upgrading that was done in Taranaki was the famed Bell Block Bypass known as “Harry’s diversion” promoted and encouraged by Harry Duynhoven a former member for New Plymouth now the current mayor. It is a highly successful stretch of road but it was only ever one part of a long-term jigsaw that had to be put together and this Government has abandoned the jigsaw. The people of Taranaki are crying out for it. They are crying out even louder than the people of Wairarapa who feel that $45 a year $90 a year and $135 a year are a major pinch in their pocket but their local member does not recognise and respect that. The people of Taranaki are crying out for attention and for action. This bill will not even help them and the title of the bill should properly reflect the failures in it—the failure to give due care and due attention to the real needs of people in the provinces and the regions the good people of Taranaki foremost amongst them.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to be able to take a call—[Interruption] Thank you I think that was Trevor Mallard’s attempt to give me props maybe or perhaps—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! It was just that Mr Little had been here a long time and I knew he desperately needed a call so that is why I took him before you.JACINDA ARDERN: Mr Chair as one who well understands the frustration of the continual attempt to take a call I really applaud the democratic way in which these calls have been awarded. I feel that there is no favour expressed and I am not still reeling from my massive defeat in the Waikato at your hands Mr Chair. I know that you have been giving me sympathy calls ever since.I think it is important when we debate the title and commencement clauses that we take them in context and we are debating whether or not the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill should remain as such. I agree with the deputy leader that to a certain extent the use of the words “Budget Measures” does give an indication as to what this bill is attempting to achieve so I want to acknowledge that up front; there is a little bit of transparency in this title. By using the reference to Budget measures it is very clear that this is one of the Government’s primary ways of getting this country back into surplus. I think it was pointed out by our leader in his Budget speech that people should remember when they are at the petrol pump what has got this Government over the line when it comes to its much-trumpeted surplus in the future Budget. I think we need to take that all with a grain of salt and with a bit ofcontext that that is what it has taken to get us over the line. In that regard the title has reflected something that I think is accurate.But in many ways actually other elements of the bill have tried to ignore that. You need only to look at the regulatory impact statement to get a hint of what the rest of the bill claims that it is trying to do. I do want to add that I am pleased that we have in this case a regulatory impact statement although I would have liked to see a little bit more detail in that. But this is a good place to look for some other ideas for what this bill perhaps should have been called in its title. It states in the regulatory impact statement that forecasts of revenue and expenditure for the National Land Transport Fund in November 2012 indicated a total revenue shortfall of around $1.6 billion over the next few years. That indicates obviously that things are going terribly wrong in the way the Government is prioritising its spend within the National Land Transport Fund or it is simply ignoring that people are choosing to travel and transport themselves differently—not least because of the rising cost of living and of transport generally.So you could in that sense call this the “Spending More Than We Have on Poorly Planned Projects Bill” or you could in that sense call it the “This is the Plugging the Gap for the Roads of National Significance Bill” because that is exactly what this bill does. In that sense it is also as I said before very important that we look at a bill in its totality before we vote for it.We have in the past of course used things like regional fuel taxes to make sure that we cover our transport needs for a region—Auckland being amongst those high on the list when we think about the needs for those kinds of measures. But for Labour that has always been about trying to cover the costs of all transport options not simply saying that the land transport pot of money needs to go simply to building more and more highways because that is not futureproofing our transport needs.This bill is very explicitly about trying to plug a gap for building those roads of national significance. So although of course in the past we have used those measures we have always been clear that they are for a range of projects and I would highlight that for the Greens. Why would they want to vote for a bill that is so explicitly going to end up funding projects that I know they do not support? That is something that I think contextually we must be very clear about when we vote for measures like this. It is not just about the measure but about where it ends up. So that is why I would almost as I say again call it the “Customs and Excise (For the Roads of National Significance) Bill” just to be very clear about what will be happening with this extra revenue. As the title implies this bill is for the Budget but it is also trying to go towards plugging that roads of national significance gap so you could almost call it the “Sell It Tax It Spend It 12 Times Over Bill” because that is exactly what we have seen as well with the way this Government has behaved with assets.As I have mentioned the Government did get rid of the regional fuel tax some time ago now—IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I have been looking forward to having an opportunity to speak on the title and commencement clauses of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. The first alternative title that I would like to offer is the “Fuel Tax for Funding a Fanciful Surplus Bill”. As members have said a number of times essentially what this bill is about is making sure that the Government can just squeak past its plans to make a surplus. Really I think it is entirely disingenuous of the Government to try to suggest to New Zealanders through the title that we have that this is somehow about funding transport infrastructure—even to suggest that it is about funding broad transport infrastructure. What we know is that on current projections a simple fuel tax increase aligned to CPI would be enough to do all that this Government wants to do. It could build all the roadsthat it wanted to without having to bring this fuel tax increase in but what it needs of course is money right now so that it can meet its Budget surplus.You might have noticed there is a little bit of alliteration in that title. I know that another fan of alliteration is Dr Cam Calder. It is good to see Cam Calder in the Chamber now. He told medical students today that he could not be at a symposium that they were holding because he had an important speech to make to the House on the fuel excise tax bill and he would have to make that speech at 2 o’clock. The sum total of Cam Calder’s contribution to debate on this bill was at about quarter past 4 when he said: “I move that the question be now put.” That is the entire total contribution that Cam Calder made to this. But I know that Cam Calder would love an alliterative title to this bill like the “Fuel Tax for Funding a Fanciful Surplus Amendment Bill”.Another good name for this would be the “Taxing Middle New Zealand Bill” because that is what this bill actually does. It is part of the Government’s suite of measures to make up for its unaffordable income tax cuts that it gave to its mates because again it needs to get the country back into surplus. And because it gave away those unaffordable tax cuts for the rich—let us be honest; they were tax cuts for the rich—now the rest of New Zealand particularly middle New Zealand is having to make up for that by paying for these fuel tax increases.Another good title for this would be the “Fuel Tax (Leaving Out the Regions) Bill” because the Minister has said at every opportunity that what this bill is about is funding the Government’s roads of national significance—those roads of political significance that are all about the highways that run up the middle of the country. They are not about the regions. The National Government is not working for the regions. If it was it would have an integrated approach to its transport network and it would be funding those local roads like State Highway 3 for which Andrew Little has been advocating for so long; like the gravel roads in the Tararua District which the locals have told me personally they want to see upgraded so that they can get better productivity out of the logging that is about to come on stream; and like the alternative to the gold-plated highway—the Western Link Road—that could have been built on the Kāpiti coast. That is what the locals actually wanted but because this Government is not interested in what the regions want—because this Government is not at all interested in what the regions want—it is putting up taxes on everybody so that it can build its monuments to its 1950s approach to transport infrastructure.We could call this the “Plugging the Gap that Steven Joyce Created Bill” because what we know from reading through documents containing advice that the Minister of Transport has received is that Steven Joyce told the New Zealand Transport Agency to overspend. He deliberately told it to overspend on its roading budget so that there was pressure on the roading budget so that there was a call for additional funding and so that then the Government would have an excuse to bring in this extra tax. Why did it need an excuse to bring in this extra tax? So that it could get the Budget back into surplus. So this is plugging the gap that Steven Joyce created; that is what this bill is all about.Finally I would call this the “Taxing the Regions to Pay for Auckland Bill” because the Government has said “No no no.” to all the options for getting Auckland working and all the possible revenue options so that Aucklanders could pay their fair share of transport infrastructure in Auckland. If this Government does plan to do anything if this Government does plan to do anything at all in Auckland who is going to pay for it? It is going to be the people of Southland it is going to be the people of Hawke’s Bay and it is going to be the people of Manawatū.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I moveThat the Committee report progress.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Committee report progress.Ayes49New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 9; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Noes62New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Motion not agreed to.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): It is a pity the Attorney-General has left the chair. If he is available it would be good if he could help with some of the interpretation that I think needs to occur. I have before me the Interpretation Act—in fact in the old days it used to be called the Acts Interpretation Act—and I want to refer to section 8(1) which refers to the commencement of legislation. I am referring of course to the commencement clause clause 2 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. Section 8(1) of the Interpretation Act says: “An Act or an enactment in an Act comes into force on the date stated or provided in the Act for the commencement of the Act or for the commencement of the enactment.” I think it is fair to say that subsection (2) is not relevant for this particular point.But the question that I have for the Minister or if he needs help for the Attorney-General who is the Minister responsible for the Interpretation Act is whether it comes into force at the beginning of the day or at midday or at the end of the day. I do not know whether I should say that I am from the Opposition and I am here to help. But I think that if the Government wants something to come into effect from 1 July by way of amendment to regulations it is my understanding that it has to get it in place before then so that it takes effect on that particular day. We know that the Government’s attempt is to commence to get the petrol tax—and for a whole pile of reasons we think it is wrong—to go up all day on 1 July this year. I do not think there are any debates about 1 July 2014 and 1 July 2015—that is relatively clear.But the question I have got is whether by having the bill come into force on 1 July this year the Government is allowed under the Interpretation Act to get the money from—I used to work night shift at what used to be called The Ferry. I do not know what it is called now—the big Shell service station down there. It was back in the days when you had two standard pumps—one super pump and one diesel pump; there was a little thing on the triangle. There were petrol price changes and they were relatively frequent. There were carless days and there was a whole pile of different arrangements back in the time of a very good Labour Government sometimes going bad. There were price adjustments. But we always had notice and they always came in at midnight. They came in at midnight at the beginning of the day but that was because the enactments had been done effectively beforehand with notice for a particular day. But in this case the enactment comes into force only on the day when we expect the Government wants to lift the price of petrol. The question there is whether the commencement date is accurate.The other question in regard to dates that I want to ask the Minister about is how the commencement clause interplays with clause 7(2) of Part 2. Because what happens there is that regulation 6A of the principal regulations as inserted by clause 7(1) is revoked on 1 July 2015. What they—the dates as set out—appear to have the effect of doing and this is not clear is undoing the farmers’ exemption. If it is the Government’s intention to undo the farmers’ exemption and other people’s exemptions as at 1 July 2015—not for the whole lot but just for this extra 10c and GST—would it not be betterfor it to say something about that in the explanatory note? It is a relatively simple matter. I would appreciate—I know we are relatively early in this debate—LOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National): I moveThat the question be now put.MOANA MACKEY (Labour): I am happy that I am finally able to take a call in this debate after seeking the call for a long time because this is a very important piece of legislation.Hon Member: You didn’t have a chance.MOANA MACKEY: Actually that is true unfortunately. I think that the title of this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill does not accurately represent what this bill actually means for the people of New Zealand. I think a more accurate title would be the “Customs and Excise (So That’s How They Manufactured a Surplus) Amendment Bill” because the extraordinary thing about this piece of legislation that we have learnt through this Committee stage is that this is how Government members are getting the books back into surplus. They said they were going to do it they were desperate to meet it and this is how they are going to do it by artificially pushing up petrol taxes.When you look at National Government members this is really all they have done. All they have done in their time in Government when they have tried to make the books look good is increase taxes. They increased GST when they said they would not. John Key stared down the barrel of the TV camera and promised the voters he would not but he did anyway. They have been overcharging people for their ACC levies. And now lo and behold here we have another petrol tax. So instead of actually structurally getting our economy back into the black instead of actually structurally doing it in a way that means it is sustainable it is real and it is based on real economic activity we are whacking up petrol tax which is going to hit the lowest-income households the hardest again—again. This is another regressive tax from the National Government to try to make itself look good.Given that income from this tax is also going to pay for the Government’s ridiculous roads of national significance these gold-plated holiday highways perhaps we could rename this bill the “Customs and Excise (Peace of Mind for Low and Middle Income Families) Amendment Bill”. I am going to explain myself on that. This bill gives peace of mind for low and middle income families who will now have the satisfaction of knowing that Ministers will be able to get to their holiday homes 7 minutes faster at peak holiday times. So those low-income families will be able to sleep easy knowing that when the ministerial vehicles are heading up to Northland to the holiday homes at Christmas they will get there 7 minutes faster. That is fantastic news for low and middle income households in this country.I am interested in once again this Government’s complete obsession with roads over every other form of transport in this country. I think we could also call this bill the “Customs and Excise (Gisborne Still Doesn’t Have a Rail Line) Amendment Bill” because it would have been nice to see some of this money go into the rail line between Gisborne and Napier which was damaged in a weather event last year and would cost a couple of million dollars to fix. All the businesses in Gisborne and Napier and Wairoa want it. We need that rail line. If you actually want real economic activity then you support transport corridors like rail and like coastal shipping. It would have been nice to see some of the money being sucked out of the pockets of people in Gisborne and Wairoa and Napier go into funding their rail line—an absolutely vital piece of infrastructure. I hear Mr Auchinvole interjecting on me. Would he be happy if his rail line on the West Coast closed? No. It is all right because it is not his rail line—not his rail line. Well we have a “wall of wood” coming down on the East Coast in the nextfew years—that “wall of wood” starts to come down. The only way it has to get out of our district is by road and by coastal shipping. People would love to be able to use that rail line.We have a lot of container transport out of Gisborne as well. In fact a big bulk of our produce out of Gisborne goes on containers. The only way they have to get out is by road because we do not have the container capacity at the Gisborne port. There is a mill that is closing down in Wairoa because of the Government’s refusal to fund our rail line. So this should be the “Customs and Excise (Shame on the National Government for Not Supporting the Provinces) Amendment Bill” or perhaps the “Customs and Excise (More Transport Taxation Not Going to the Provinces) Amendment Bill” because that party the great party of provincial New Zealand has been sucking money out of the provinces from the day it came into Government. It takes them for granted. It figures they are going to vote for it anyway so it will just treat them really badly.Hon Trevor Mallard: John Hayes says it’s not much.MOANA MACKEY: Well that is right. John Hayes says there is not much of that in this bill. John Hayes says that you know this bill puts up taxation for people in the provinces for absolutely no reward in return and that is fine. He says that because he can afford it on his MP’s salary everyone else in his electorate should be able to afford it.Hon Trevor Mallard: He has his transport paid for.MOANA MACKEY: Oh of course that is right. MPs’ transport costs are paid for. We can claim them back. I am sure Mr Hayes does. Well unfortunately his constituents do not have that ability and here he is—DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): I moveThat the question be now put.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): I have sat here listening to this debate with some astonishment. First of all there is the lack of debate from the Government in defending its tax increase. But then I was disturbed by the fact that this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill really needs to change its title. I think the best title that could be given is the “National Party U-turn Bill”. That should be the name of this bill because I was the Minister of Transport who brought in—[Interruption] Yes you can moan over there but at least we had a transport policy I say to the member. We had a policy that took account of roads and rail and coastal shipping. It was not all about one part of transport so maybe that member ought to get up to date about what transport is about. I was a Minister of Transport who brought in a regional fuel tax that was permissive that was allowed to be used by different regions for different projects. It was phased in over a number of years and was to be used only if a local region wanted it if a region had a particular roading transport rail or shipping project that it wanted to use the regional fuel tax for.Let us go back to the 2008 election and the campaigning by the National Party against a regional fuel tax. National said it was a terrible thing because the only place that wanted it—we worked in conjunction with the Auckland Regional Council not needing an accord not needing all these meetings and legislation that we have to bring in on housing; it was worked through with the council—wanted a regional fuel tax because it wanted to invest in rail local rail in Auckland. You know we are now looking at 5 years on and that could have been started—well started. It was to be used for rail and some of it was to be used for public transport other public transport. It was also to be used for a piece of road called the Penlink Toll Road which was going to help open up the Whangaparāoa Harbour into Silverdale so businesses could develop. It was agreed it was wanted and what did the National Party do? It campaigned against it and then when it became the Government the first move by Steven Joyce was torepeal the regional fuel tax a permissive tax based on local people identifying local needs.And what do we have here? We have a regional fuel tax that covers the whole of New Zealand. It is based not on what local transport needs are but on what the Government wants the money for. So we now have 9c going right across New Zealand regardless of whether anyone is going to win out of this. I agree with Moana Mackey. Anyone who represents a rural area a provincial area will be saying: “Hang on a minute this money is going for some roads to serve the cities but what about our road maintenance? What about our public transport? We don’t have any.” This money is going to go across the whole of New Zealand. This bill should be called the “National Party U-turn Bill”. It is such cant that National is putting this bill in the House today passing it through all its stages when National opposed it so much when it was in Opposition.You know National opposed things like the hypothecation of all the money that is taken in from road users to go into transport. National opposed that for a long time but now it makes out it was one of its policies. You see Government members are so unsure of themselves when it comes to transport. What we do know is we need to protect our rural and provincial area so that they get a fair suck of the sav. We need to ensure that we invest in rail and that we invest in roads and coastal shipping. What has this Government done? It has put its money into roads and it has now brought in a regional fuel tax across New Zealand. Well I have to say that this is the “U-turn Bill”. That is what its title ought to be and the National Party has not got the bottle to stand up and defend this tax which it opposed only 5 years ago.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes50New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 9; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat clause 1 be agreed to.Ayes71New Zealand National 59; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes29New Zealand Labour 21; New Zealand First 7; Independent: Horan.Clause 1 agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat clause 2 be agreed to.Ayes71New Zealand National 59; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes29New Zealand Labour 21; New Zealand First 7; Independent: Horan.Clause 2 agreed to.Bill reported without amendment.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I moveThat the report be adopted.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the report be adopted.Ayes71New Zealand National 59; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes29New Zealand Labour 21; New Zealand First 7; Independent: Horan.Report adopted.Third ReadingHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Transport): I moveThat the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. Increases in petrol excise combined with the increases in road-user charges will provide the revenue this country needs to deliver long-overdue improvements to the land transport network. The increases will lift the rate of excise duty on petrol to about 59.5c per litre in 2015. Compared with other developed countries this rate is low. In fact even following these increases New Zealand will have the fifth-lowest rate of petrol tax in the OECD. New Zealand also has one of the few hypothecated schemes in the OECD. In other words all the money that is taken off the road users is spent on the roads. Maintaining this system ensures that road users throughout the country continue to be the ones who are funding investment and maintenance in the roading network. These increases will allow significant investment in the country’s many important transport projects. I commend this bill to the House.LOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National): I seek the leave of the House to adjourn at the conclusion of this third reading of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill and forgo the dinner break.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that. Is there any objection? There is objection.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): It has been a long day of debate but here we are in the third reading of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. We are very close to the point at which the National Government supported by the Greens and the Mana Party will be increasing taxes on hard-working low and middle income New Zealanders. That is an outrage because it is an absolute contradiction to what the National Party said it was going to do before it came into Government. John Key went up and down New Zealand. He went to every single region. He went to every single city. He stared down the barrel of every single camera he could get in front of and he told New Zealanders that he was going to bring down taxes that he was going to bring down costs for everyday hard-working New Zealanders but that is not what happened at all.What happened is that the National Party came into Government and immediately cut taxes for its mates. It immediately cut taxes for its mates. Then it realised that no it probably could not do that so then it immediately reversed the tax cuts for its mates. But then the next year the Government had another go at it and it cut taxes. It cut the top tax rate—the tax rate that its mates pay that the wealthy pay.What the Government has done subsequent to that is that it has found every single possible way of putting up taxes on low and middle income New Zealanders. It started with GST. Remember before the election—again does everybody remember before the election—Hon Trevor Mallard: No ifs no buts no maybes.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: No ifs no buts no maybes—John Key’s absolute cast-iron guaranteed promise to New Zealand was that National would not be raising GST. He said: “National is not going to be raising GST. National wants to cut taxes not raise taxes.” He said that the fastest way to eliminate deficits was to get New Zealand back into surplus and get New Zealand growing again.That surplus is of course what this is all about. So what has John Key had to do to get the Government’s books back into surplus? Well it certainly has not been anything to do with growing the economy. If the economy was growing if this Government was doing its job if it was actually working for New Zealanders—if it was not too busy working for Skycity if it was not too busy working for Warner Bros if it was not too busy working for anybody else except the New Zealand taxpayer—then this country would be growing again. The Government would not have to resort to putting up GST increasing the cost of early childhood education increasing ACC and increasing fuel excise taxes just so that it can squeak in that $75 billion Budget surplus that it is predicting. That is what this is about.Hon Trevor Mallard: $75 billion?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It is $75 million.Hon Trevor Mallard: Only $75 million. What?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It is $75 million. Is that 0.1 percent?Hon Trevor Mallard: No.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: No no. It is less than that. It is such a tiny insignificant proportion of the Government’s total revenue that if the Government sneezes out of turn it could lose that surplus in a moment. It takes just one cock-up from Simon Bridges and it is all over. That is all it would take. That is the real reason why this National Government has put up taxes again for hard-working New Zealanders.And of course we know that the Government is all about the surplus because it has been overcharging Kiwis for ACC for so long that it has finally accepted that it is time to reduce the ACC charges. But did the Government do it a year ago when its officials told it that it was time to do it? No. Will the Government do it this year? No. When will the Government do it? The Government will do it after it gets to that surplus. It has not even factored it in. It has sort of promised it hinted at it. Well maybe that will be another broken promise if the Government cannot get its books back into shape. If we are not quite at the surplus maybe those ACC cuts just will not happen even though New Zealanders are being overcharged for ACC just like they are now being overcharged for their fuel excise taxes.If for a moment we actually believe the Minister of Transport and say that this is about building transport infrastructure we know from his first reading speech and his second reading speech that this is all about the roads of political significance. He tried to U-turn a bit on that in the Committee stage. He tried to say it was about the whole transport network. But the Minister’s own words in his first reading and second reading speeches were that this was all about funding the roading network and that of course is what the hollow men want. They want all that money that is raised by fuel excise taxes to go into the roads of political significance.If this has got anything to do with transport infrastructure that is what it is about. The National Party does not believe in an integrated transport system—Hon Annette King: Or the provinces.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —or the provinces as my colleague Annette King says. Our national transport infrastructure involves local roads it involves railway lines like the Napier to Gisborne railway line it involves roads like State Highway 3 in Taranaki—Hon Trevor Mallard: Cycleways.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —it involves cycleways it involves active transport like walking and cycling in urban areas it involves public transport like urban rail and buses and it involves motorways. Motorways are important. Coastal shipping is highly important. Coastal shipping will never be backed by the National Party because it cannot stick coastal shipping in front of the voters and say: “Look what we did.” Most of the voters do not reside a couple of miles off the coast so they cannot see that.Hon Trevor Mallard: Protesters.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well the protesters cannot go out there either Mr Mallard because National got rid of the protesters too.What National has done is put all of it into the highways. Look sometimes highways are the answer. Sometimes you do the analysis of what the need is and what the solution is and sometimes highways are the answer. It is important to complete the roading networks in Auckland that both the Labour Party and the National Party have supported in the past but it cannot all be about highways. It is absolutely disingenuous for the Minister to stand up and say that he supports a diverse transport network—a diverse range of infrastructure for the transport network. He has said himself that this is all about the “Holiday Highway”. That is what National’s flagship transport infrastructure programme is all about. That is all it ever wants to talk about.National members said no when Len Brown came to them with a package for Auckland that included the central city rail link. I wish National members would get it through their heads that it is not a loop; it is a link. It is about opening up the entire rail network in Auckland and making it more effective and more efficient. But the National members say no because they hate rail. They will never support rail because rail might get in the way of the roads of political significance. That is what National’s modus operandi is when it comes to transport infrastructure.Voters can rely on the Labour Party to take a sensible sustainable approach to building an integrated transport network. The resources that we have in the transport budget are limited. We have to be wise about how we use them. We cannot hurl everything at projects that are purely for political gain. We have to do what is right for growth. We have to do what is right to make sure that our communities are connected. We have to do what is right to make sure that our transport infrastructure is environmentally sustainable and that we work towards reducing emissions not only to ensure that we have less of an impact on our environment but also to improve public health because that is important. It is a very important component of making sure that New Zealanders are healthy and have a good standard of life that public health considerations are taken into account when building transport infrastructure.But the Government has got rid of all of those things. We used to have legislation that said that transport infrastructure had to be affordable that it had to be effective that it had to be efficient that it had to take into account public health and that it had to take into account the environment but the Government got rid of all of that. It got rid of the legislation that gets in the way of its roads of political significance. That is what the Government has done.That was the first aspect and this bill just backs that up. It got rid of the roadblocks that might somehow get in the way of its road-building programme and now it is raising taxes on middle and low income New Zealanders to pay for a funding gap that was created by Steven Joyce. He deliberately told the New Zealand Transport Agency to overspend on roads. That is where the funding gap came from. I find it outrageous that this National Government which tells New Zealand that it is all about lowering taxes takes a tax and spend approach and a profligate approach to roading and that it is doing that off the backs of hard-working New Zealanders.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): I move that the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill progress. It is good for the Waikato Expressway. Thank you.Grant Robertson: Well Mr Speaker I presume—Mr SPEAKER: You are seeking the call are you not?Grant Robertson: —I am now speaking to the amended motion that Mr Bennett has put up.Mr SPEAKER: No no. The man—[Interruption] Order! Does the member want the call or not?Grant Robertson: Yes Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: The member has the call.GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): It was a very confusing contribution there from a confused member David Bennett. That is actually the most substantive contribution made by a National backbencher in this debate. I want to start by looking at a process issue that we have. This has been a long session of urgency that has culminated in this particular bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. Most of the legislation that we debated over the last few days before we got to this bill actually did not have much to do with the Budget at all. The Government was trying to correct mistakes that it had made and it chucked them into an urgency motion like this. Government members who would rather be somewhere else on a Saturday evening than here might want to reflect on the way in which they are going about making law. If they are going to shove laws through in haste there will be mistakes. We had the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill before this one which amends a bill that has not even come into force yet. Then we have the other bill that we passed which was around carers which is causing a great deal of consternation in the community. It is a bill that should have gone to a select committee. So here we are at the end of the urgency motion with this bill. I do think Government members need to reflect upon the kind of legislation and the kind of lawmaking that they are going into.This bill is being opposed by Labour because we believe that it is a core element of the Government’s Budget which we strongly oppose. I do want to note at this stage our surprise that there are parties that will be voting against the Budget overall but have chosen to vote in favour of this bill. I respect the Green Party’s and Mana party’s principled position around supporting petrol tax increases on the grounds that that should be part of moving towards a different kind of mix of transport solutions in New Zealand. The problem for parties such as the Greens and Mana which are voting for this is that that is not what is happening under this bill. If it was maybe there could be a conversation to be had about whether it is a good idea to support a petrol tax increase as part of moving towards a more sustainable transport programme with different modes of transport like rail and coastal shipping being supported. But that is not what is happening in this bill.This bill is simply if the Government is to be believed about funding the National Land Transport Fund and in particular the roads of national significance. So it is disappointing I have to say from a Labour point of view that others who will oppose the Budget as a whole do not realise that this is a clear Budget measure that actually does not contribute to sustainable transport but in fact simply contributes to the roads of national significance.It has been quite clear despite National’s lack of contribution to this debate over the last day or so that this bill is actually about creating the fiction of a surplus in the Government accounts. That is quite simple. It is quite clear that a petrol tax increase such as this forms part of that strategy. Gerry Brownlee and others have told us tootoday that that is not true that we are wrong but the reality is that if you look at the Budget documents you will see that the National Government has manufactured that surplus off the back of this petrol tax increase off the back of ACC levies that are jacked up and then magically brought down off the back of $1.1 billion worth of corporate tax revenue that just materialises in the Government’s books in the year that it happened to want to get into surplus. We do not believe that that is right. If the Government really thinks it can get a surplus it needs to be able to justify that on a growing economy on an economy that is generating jobs on an economy that is actually going to get people paying more income tax and therefore giving the Government more revenue. Instead the Government is relying on a wafer-thin surplus of $75 million based upon overcharging New Zealanders overtaxing New Zealanders and not giving New Zealanders a fair go.As part of this Budget I do urge those parties that want to oppose the Budget to have a think about where this fits in the overall scope of National’s tax policy. National’s tax policy consistently since National came in in 2008 has gone against the promises that were made to New Zealanders. John Key made specific promises about the tax burden on middle-class New Zealanders. The reality is that the only tax burden that has been relieved since National came into office is for the top 10 percent of earners. Once again we see—Hon Trevor Mallard: Got $1 million.GRANT ROBERTSON: The calculation that Trevor Mallard and others have made is that John Key managed to get $1 million a year out of this when we looked at his total income. Do you know what the average wage earner got out of that? Twelve bucks a week—$12 a week. That is what the average wage earner in New Zealand got out of the tax cuts that National did in 2010. But beyond those tax cuts all we have seen are tax increases and increases in charges on ordinary working New Zealanders. The GST increase: no ifs no buts no maybes. GST was not going up under National and then it did.Then the Government followed that up with ratcheting up ACC charges. We have seen early childhood education fees go up by up to 20 percent for many families. We have seen additional cost of living pressures piling on to New Zealanders and prescription charges going up. That may seem like a small increase to members on the opposite benches. We heard during the Committee stage debate on this bill that John Hayes said that an average increase of $45 a year as a result of this petrol tax was not much and did not mean much—was not much. Well that simply is out of touch. That is out of touch because New Zealanders who are struggling to make ends meet will be sitting there tonight saying: “So this Government says my bill to fill up my car will go up by 3c a litre this year next year and the year after.” And that is what this Government is doing plus the GST. Some people will be lucky enough to claim that back if they can get that out as being a commercial use. But most ordinary New Zealanders will be facing that bill. So if we put all of those things together there is not a brighter future coming out of this Government; there is a bleaker future for most New Zealanders because they are facing these increased costs from this Government.I want to return to another matter relating to this as a budgetary measure and that is to raise the concerns again that have been raised with me by people from Christchurch and the Canterbury region about comments made in recent days by both the Prime Minister and Gerry Brownlee about what is going on in this Budget in relation to Christchurch. It was the Prime Minister who said on television onCampbell Live that New Zealanders across the country will need to go without for Christchurch. Playing that kind of blame game with Christchurch is unacceptable. It is not on for the people of Christchurch—Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s not what he said.GRANT ROBERTSON: It is exactly what he said Mr Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No it’s not what he said.GRANT ROBERTSON: It is exactly what he said Mr Brownlee. He went on television and said that. I am more than happy to say this. This is it. It is right here. I have got the article right here. He said that New Zealanders right across the country have to go without so that money can go into Christchurch as a priority. It is right there in black and white Mr Brownlee. He is very quiet now. Right there. John Key said that in black and white onCampbell Live. Actually Mr Brownlee because he has interjected on me might care to learn that we have Christchurch city councillors saying that they were staggered by that. Another person who lost their home said that she was incensed by Mr Key’s comments—she was incensed by them. Perhaps this was another occasion where he should pick his words more carefully.Louise Upston: This is relevant how?GRANT ROBERTSON: Louise Upston says: “Is this relevant now?”. Well the people of Christchurch and the people of Canterbury say that this is very very relevant now Louise Upston—this is very relevant now.This bill is being opposed by the Labour Opposition. It is part of a Budget that has entirely failed to address what New Zealanders would expect a Budget to address: to actually help grow a strong economy to actually support exporters and manufacturers to back people who create jobs and to actually help create jobs. It has failed to create a fairer society. Promises were made about food in schools and not kept. Band-aid solutions to poverty were put up. This Budget has completely failed to address the economic and social issues that are facing New Zealanders today. It has been put forward by a Government distracted by its own scandals focused on vested interests focused on deals with Skycity and Warner Bros and not focused on giving a fair deal for New Zealanders. We end this debate with the National Government putting up petrol taxes on hard-working New Zealanders which is the very thing it said it would not do. It is the very broken promise that it has come to this House time and again and broken—broken once broken twice broken three times and now in its fifth Budget breaking it again. This Government could have come to this House today with a package around increasing petrol taxes that would have gone towards sustainable transport solutions. It has not done that. Parties that are supporting this bill need to think very carefully about where this fits inside the priorities of this Government which are not for—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Come on windbag wind up.GRANT ROBERTSON: Pardon? Oh Mr Brownlee’s bored. Mr Brownlee is saying—well I am sorry to Mr Brownlee but I have taken calls in this debate because this bill is flawed. This bill is flawed and it should not pass.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. After Mr Bennett spoke he appeared to move an amendment. He certainly moved something—David Bennett: I never did that.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It was not absolutely clear. It is the normal practice for the Speaker to—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat—[Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat if he expects to stay for the rest of the debate.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Speaker. I am pleased to be the last Green Party speaker on this Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. The Green Party is supporting the bill. Obviously we have got a different transport vision from the Government’s. We have got concerns about how thefuel excise levy is going to be spent. We think it is logically inconsistent. The declining road transport revenue is going to be fixed by increasing the fuel excise levy and increased borrowing to spend on the roads. Obviously fewer people are going to be driving. Over numerous calls we have critiqued the Government’s 1960s transport vision. We have proposed our positive solution. But we are not going to belabour the point tonight. Kia ora.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. David Bennett earlier on appeared to move a motion and it was not entirely—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have ruled on that and if the member—[Interruption] Order! Would the member resume his seat.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: If the member intends to relitigate the same issue I will take it very seriously.Hon ANNETTE KING: I am asking the Speaker a question. Could you please inform the House what your ruling was?Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member clearly stumbled on his words. I have accepted that and we moved on quite some time ago.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): I support this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill and commend it to the House.Mr SPEAKER: Denis O’Rourke. [Interruption] Order! I have called Denis O’Rourke. [Interruption] Order! Order! It is the members’ own time they are wasting.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): People are getting sick and tired of having petrol tax increases of the size and frequency that this Government has imposed and will impose further by this Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. The effect is that since National took office the petrol tax will have gone from 42c per litre to 59c per litre an increase of over 40 percent. That is a massive increase for the people of this country to bear. The magnitude of the proposed increases to add 9c per litre over 3 years would need I believe much better justification than the Government has so far given and I am dismayed that so few of the members opposite me have chosen to rise and speak to give that justification. I listened to what the Minister of Transport said and also did not find anything like adequate justification for the sheer magnitude of the increases that are being proposed. That is the first issue: large fuel tax increases with no real justification although I suppose we know what the real reason is and that is to make the Government’s books look good for election purposes next year.Another issue—why by this time New Zealand has not developed other funding sources—is something that we should really think about much more. Just recently I was interested to read the Auckland transport funding plan. It sets out two options. Both have baskets of different funding sources. One requires more funding from rates and the other suggests that road pricing systems be introduced. Both of course require regional fuel taxes. Stupidly I think this Government is now abolishing the legislation allowing regional fuel taxes to be established. I think that is a very serious mistake.Hon Member: Different bill.DENIS O’ROURKE: It is a different bill but that legislation is also going through the House at this time. So the Government’s moves to impose these much larger fuel tax increases are not appropriate when our largest city is currently looking at the best funding sources for land transport purposes right through to the year 2030 and beyond. The point here is that that city is not just looking at funding for transport initiatives but also wishes to begin to introduce demand management measures especially to suppress demand at peak times and we all know what Auckland can get like at peak times.In Christchurch of course where I come from there were no motorways allowed by successive councils through the built-up area of the central city. That is a debate we had a decade or so ago. The only motorways that we want to see in that city are those that give access to the city from the rest of the country so that is the motorway to the south which has just been expanded and that to the north. I myself was involved as a member of the city council there in trying to move the city towards a more sustainable transport system by improving public transport establishing a bus exchange encouraging cycling and all those things. It is sad that this Government does not seem to understand the need for us to move more strongly in that area.But another issue is that any increased funding should be applied towards a more sustainable transport system and this country needs substantial measures aimed at just that. It is short-sighted to simply increase fuel taxes at the proposed rate in order to mindlessly build more motorways only some of which are actually required. The real issue is the need for road pricing and other measures aimed firstly at a more sustainable land transport system and secondly at a system that incentivises other modes especially at peak time. I do not see any proposal that the Government has put before us at any time during this term of Parliament that would give me any confidence that that will be done. We should really learn the lessons of other countries where the headlong race to build more road capacity has resulted only in more demand especially at peak times. The effect is a vicious circle which costs vast sums in capital and increased maintenance costs as well not to mention the costs of many externalities.I also would have to agree with another speaker and express my dismay that the Greens are voting for this bill—voting for huge fuel tax increases that will burden the ordinary people of this country without any assurance that it will move us towards a more sustainable transport system. I might have it wrong but I thought the Greens were in favour of a more sustainable transport system. I have not heard them say anything so far to give me any understanding of why they would support this particular increase in fuel taxes when it will not do anything to move us towards a more sustainable transport system.New Zealand First is focused on a more sustainable transport system. We want more from the system than just roads. We accept that there are road improvements that are needed but we want much more than that. We want a fair well-thought-out funding system and we want a modern rail system integrated with good road shipping and other transport systems. We want to develop these with Kiwi expertise rather than buying it from overseas. We want to see the electrification of the New Zealand rail system using New Zealand workers providing jobs in this country. We do not want to see Hillside railway workshops close. They would be able to provide us with rolling stock providing more jobs for people in this country. We want more economic and environmentally sustainable transport systems.We will vote against this bill fundamentally because it is just a money-grab and is not part of a genuine move towards the modern transport system that this country needs. It is really sad to hear the members opposite whose only contribution has been caterwauling from the backbenches and none of whom have bothered to rise and take a genuine part in this debate. That I think not just is very sad but actually means that the National Party simply does not care about the welfare of the people in this country who will have to pay those fuel taxes without getting in return any genuine move towards a sustainable transport system for New Zealand. That is pretty pathetic. New Zealand First will certainly vote against the bill and we will be very saddened if it proceeds any further.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): We should pass this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. Thank you.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I think the thing that I can say for that last speech from Chris Auchinvole is that it was more consistent and coherent than David Bennett’s speech before and did not attempt to move an amendment in the way that Mr Bennett’s did. It is not exactly high praise but the fact that the member did better than David Bennett is noted by all other members in the House.Being a Wellington member is sometimes a disadvantage. When international visitors are coming into town we are the ones especially Ministers who are called to go to the airport and do various things. But being a Wellington member and having a very good chance of getting home to Wainuiōmata after the dinner break in time to see Piri Weepu playing for the Blues—a 7.35 start—is something that is good. At least I will be doing it with the excise rates and the duty on motor spirits being at the level they are now.Hon Tau Henare: It’s all about Trevor.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: There goes Tau Henare again. He appears to be able to speak or stand but not both at the same time. He appears to be able to speak and stand but he cannot take up his role as a member of Parliament and get on his hind legs and make a speech. He makes a lot of racket.I do want to get back to the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill and I want to make a comment to the Greens. I want to make a comment to the Greens and say to them that if there had been a decent transport package coming out of this then the Labour Party would have contemplated supporting it. But if there was a decent transport package coming out of this the National Party would not have got its surplus. That is the point. If there had been spending measures on public transport or on cycleways or on railways or on coastal shipping coming from this bill then the National Government would have failed to achieve the surplus that it has been trumpeting. So the Greens in supporting this—[Interruption]—are part of a rort. I agree with the National member opposite. They are part of a rort whereby they are pretending that there is a surplus when in fact we know there is not a surplus at all.Members opposite appear to be under instructions from people. They are under instructions from some of their funders in order to put this—Mr SPEAKER: Order! No. The member cannot—Hon Annette King: Point of order—Mr SPEAKER: No I am on my feet. Thank you. The member cannot allude to members being under instructions to do something suggesting that they are receiving money for that. If the member would just tidy up his speech I would be grateful for it.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I was not suggesting that they are receiving money; they are puppets on strings without the money.Dr Cam Calder: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would like to draw to the attention of Mr Mallard that he raised a point of ordersome years ago when I referred toGeppetto being behind the Labour Party—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a helpful point of order.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think the point of order at the time going back referred to the increasing size of the nose of the Prime Minister if the member was getting that right. That is something that is now often reflected in the angle of the collar of the Minister of Finance. Every time the Minister of Finance tells a whopper his collar pops out from underneath his jacket. It is something that we have been noticing from this side of the House over a period of time and to say that this money is for roading is a whopper. It is a whopper. It is not going to be spent on roading. If it was going to be spent on roading that would be budgeted for in the estimates. It is not budgeted for in the estimates. If it was budgeted for in the estimates what would be happening is that the surplus which the Prime Minister claims is a real one woulddisappear. So what is happening? The Government is collecting money that it knows it cannot spend if there is to be a surplus.I think the third reading is a time when we reflect back on the debate and we reflect back on the contributions or lack of contributions on the part of the members of the National Party. There are a number of questions—a number of questions—that were asked but not answered. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member is a very robust debater but he should not have to put up with that level of interjection.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Thank you for your protection—not that I am commenting on your ruling of course. I would not comment on your ruling.I want to refer in particular to the unanswered question relating to the very last clause clause 7(2) which revokes new regulation 6A. Regulation 6A comes in. It is revoked in 2015 as part of the bill. The question I ask is whether—Iain Lees-Galloway: Mike do you want fries with that?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Mike Sabin I am told has got a very prized police officers’ card which gets him discounts at KFC. Apparently—Hon Annette King: What?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think it is an outrage that any police officer but especially a retired police officer should attempt to get—Mike Sabin: Say it outside of the House Trevor.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I do not believe what Tau Henare says about the member. I do not believe what Tau Henare says about the member but if what Tau Henare says is true it would be an absolute outrage for any member of Parliament to impersonate a police officer in order to get a discount in a KFC. We see the effects of it on the member but I believe the member. I think he probably does pay full price but—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member. The time has come for the dinner break. The House is suspended until I resume the Chair at 7 p.m.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.Mr SPEAKER: Prior to the dinner break the Hon Trevor Mallard was speaking and he has 2 minutes remaining if he desires to use it.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Only 2 minutes? That is outrageous after I was so badly interrupted by those points of order.We are speaking to the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. This is a bill that taxes poor people in order to support rich people. It is a bill that involves a wealth transfer from provincial New Zealand to Auckland. It is something that the Labour Party is very concerned about. We are very surprised at the Green Party’s decision to vote for it. As we have said previously if there had been a decent transport package that involved funding going to public transport with this level of excise increase we would have supported it. But what the Green Party has ended up doing is voting for the Government on a Budget measure and I am very very surprised.Dr CAM CALDER (National): I commend the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill to the House.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Welcome back from the dinner break everybody. The cutaways on Parliament TV may show faces on the other side of the House being a little bit forlorn and a bit angry about being here but I think they secretly want to be here. Secretly they are quite thankful that they are here at Parliament because they are the ones who have not gone back to their communities yet. Instead they are going to stick their motorists with a 9c increase on their petrol excise. They are the ones who would basically prefer—[Interruption] It is 10.5c sorry because of the GST. I stand corrected. It is not a 9c increase at all; it is 10.5c. These are the members who are quite happy that they are here and not having to front up to the people in theircommunities to say that when they fill up their petrol tanks as of 1 July this year it will be another 3c per litre and on 1 July next year it will be another 3c and another 3c in the year beyond that. These members might think that they are the unlucky ones but these are very happy MPs because they are not going back to their home electorates and having to front up to their constituents. They may look unhappy about being here—they are the last ones left the ones who may have missed their flights for the night—but they are actually very happy to be here. They are happy to be here because they are not having to front up to their constituents to tell them that this is a Budget measure of broken promises.I just want to remind the party over there of what its leader John Key said in 2008. He said that National was not going to be raising GST—wrong. It did. He said that National wanted to cut taxes not raise taxes—wrong. This is a measure that will increase taxes by 3c per litre each year over the next 3 years for every Kiwi who is using their car or their truck. What have we heard about this? We have heard one member the MP from Wairarapa John Hayes say that the $45 more that taxpayers will have to pay to fill up their cars is not much money—it is not much money. Well it may not be much money to Mr Hayes but it certainly is a lot of money to his constituents. A lot of those people will be filling up their tanks and paying $45 more a year on top of the $40 more in prescription charges that this Government has lumped on them and also the GST that this Government has lumped on them. This has been a Budget measure of broken promises.I did not really get a chance to speak in the title and commencement clauses debate on this Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill and I just want to offer something up. I want to offer up an alternative title and that is the “Customs and Excise (Budget Advice Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill”. When people out in our communities are struggling to pay something this is a Government that makes them go out and get budget advice. They have to go and get budget advice before the Government will help them. I would suggest that this Government—which has set out on a blind mission to try to build these roads of national significance and has realised that it cannot afford it—get some budget advice then the people of New Zealand would not have to pay an extra 3c a litre for their petrol each year over the next 3 years.Of all the bills that we have seen in relation to the Budget under this urgency motion we have actually had a decent regulatory impact statement for this bill. In it very helpfully it points out why the Government has had to do this. I will quote from this document: “Forecasts of revenue and expenditure for the National Land Transport Fund in November 2012 indicated a total revenue shortfall of around $1.6 billion over the next five years. The shortfall is due to the timing of the Roads of National Significance programme which is identified as a key priority in the [Government policy statement] 2012.” In English for those people who are watching—and I am sure they are thrilled to be watching Parliament TV at this time of the night—that means that the Government promised something could not afford it and is now asking the people of New Zealand to stump up the cash to make sure it can do it.I want to give you one example of a road of national significance that the Government is pushing in my area and that is the Kapiti Expressway. Let us look at the value for money of that expressway. Last year there was a leaked report and there have been quite a few leaks—quite a few leaks—out of this Government. That report said that the engineering consultants thought that the half-billion-dollar motorway project had a benefit-cost ratio of 0.2—0.2. So for every dollar the Government spent the economic benefit of that is 20c. I am sure there are a few people over there who can count beans but in my very simple maths that is not a very good investment. In factthat would be an awful investment. To make it even worse this Government is spending $515 million on this expressway—Andrew Little: How much?KRIS FAAFOI: —$515 million—and the return on that investment that it will generate over the next 30 years is $118 million. We could have saved the Government a considerable amount of money if it had just stuck to the plan that the people of Kāpiti and the Labour Government had implemented at the end of its term.Interestingly enough so did Mr Nathan Guy the MP for Ōtaki. Late in 2009 he was all go for the Western Link Road which was the original plan for the Kāpiti coast. The locals were on board the mayor was on board Nathan Guy was on board—we were loving it. The Kāpiti coast was looking forward to it until Steven Joyce turned up—until Steven Joyce turned up. I would like to read a press release from the Hon Mr Nathan Guy because he was delighted to see the Western Link Road get started. He said: “This is fantastic news for Kapiti because it will connect up our communities. This new road and bridge will significantly ease traffic congestion on the existing State Highway”. [Interruption] Here he is—here he is. I have got your press release here Nathan. I am just reading it out for the benefit of you: “This is a fantastic”—just so I can be more precise it is actually dated 20 February 2009—“news for Kapiti because it will connect up our communities. This new road and bridge will significantly ease traffic congestion on the existing State Highway where we have about 24000 vehicles movements a day.” Then it goes on to say: “The Transport Minister Mr Steve Joyce will be briefed on this project when he visits the Otaki electorate next month to understand how important it is.”Well when Steven Joyce arrived Nathan Guy got rolled. He got rolled and in comes the Kapiti Expressway. Instead of a local link road that all the residents of Kāpiti want Nathan Guy got rolled and what the Kāpiti coast gets is a four-lane motorway through the beautiful and picturesque Kāpiti coast. I will look to table that press release if Mr Guy has forgotten what his position was in February 2009. [Interruption] If they do not like it the truth hurts. They are quite happy about that at 7.10 on a Saturday night.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the National members please give Mr Faafoi a reasonable chance. [Interruption] Order!KRIS FAAFOI: This was going to be a split call but I think I will take the whole 10 minutes.Where was I before I was so rudely interrupted? This Budget measure is all about creating the illusion that this Government has a surplus. It is only a wafer-thin surplus. It is only a wafer-thin surplus of $75 million in 2 years’ time. So when this Government says it is balancing the books it is balancing the books by a thousand cuts—nipping and tucking. It is not enough to have a bit of a nip and tuck when people go to the petrol station and fill up with petrol; they are having a nip and tuck at the Ministry for the Environment and they are having a nip and tuck at the police.Actually I will spend a couple of minutes on the police because what is this Government doing to the police? It is running them into the ground. There have been huge budget cuts—especially around traffic cops; huge budget cuts—to run our police force into the ground and this is a Government that said it backs our police on law and order. It absolutely is doing the opposite. In the last 8 months the budget pressure that the Government has put our police force under has seen 219 front-line police officers leave their jobs. If anyone wants to see the latest Ten One have a look at it: 56 front-line police officers resigned in the last month—56. That figure is only going to get worse.This is an awful Budget measure. It is there to try to create the illusion that the Government has got a surplus—a wafer-thin surplus at that. It is an awful Budgetmeasure of breaking promises around lifting GST and saying that it will lower taxes. Instead it increased taxes. With that I wish the members opposite a very lovely evening in Wellington.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): We have had 2 days of debate and not one constructive argument from the Opposition. This has been a good couple of days for the Government. In the immortal words of Frodo Baggins here we are at the end of all things. I look forward to returning to Auckland tonight—tonight—with my colleagues. Here we are at the end of all things. I commend the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill to the House.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Customs and Excise (Budget Measure—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.Ayes67New Zealand National 59; Green Party 5; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes26New Zealand Labour 19; New Zealand First 6; Independent: Horan.Bill read a third time.The House adjourned at 7.14 p.m. (Saturday)