Mackey Moana: Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMackey Moana: Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10372. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]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—