Ardern Jacinda: Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: 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:10368. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]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—