Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Madam Chair. There are a couple of points I want to raise on the bill. I'll just answer a couple of points that Michael Wood the member who's just resumed his seat made. One of the points he said was that for nine years the National Government hadn't concerned itself with funding all of the transport initiatives that it wanted and did in fact put in place. Well actually it was the National-led Government that came up with genuinely innovative solutions for funding infrastructure projects that didn't require taxing hard-working New Zealanders more—Hon Shane Jones: Like what? Name one.BRETT HUDSON: Such as unlocking the potential of State assets to reutilise the cash in infrastructure projects such as our roading projects. I'd also remind the members opposite that those mixed-ownership - model assets have returned more in dividends since they've been mixed ownership with lower State ownership than they did before. Not only has it freed up cash for infrastructure investments—hospitals schools and particularly roading and other transport—it's actually returned better dividends to the Government at the same time. Perhaps if Mr Wood had more commercial acumen he would have realised that was a far better option for funding our needs than worrying about taxing hard-working New Zealanders more hitting them in their back pockets—particularly the people in his electorate and in South Auckland who will get hurt harder by this because of the regressive nature of a regional fuel tax.I want to talk to a couple of areas of the bill and the applicable clauses. The first one follows on from a very articulate contribution from my colleague Mr Scott. All of the narrative we've heard around this bill and the need for it has talked about freeing up funding for Auckland transport projects to break congestion to unlock the potential in Auckland and yet for some reason the Minister has decided that cars that are more likely to be owned by wealthy people should be exempt—those are electric vehicles.There's a fuel tax if you're using petrol or diesel but there's no charge on a kilowatt of electricity. If you happen to own a Tesla or maybe a little bit cheaper a Leaf or a BMW i3 if you are wealthy enough to own an electric car you get a free run in Auckland—because I'm using the definition of fuel" here; because under the definition of "fuel" which references the Local Government Act of course a kilowatt of electricity is not included. It's not excluded either explicitly but it certainly isn't included. So by using that definition the Government has chosen to exclude electric vehicles.Electric vehicles are going to cause the same amount of congestion on the road as other vehicles as other cars. But no they get a free ride under the Minister's plans because I don't know perhaps they just want to help the wealthy out. I'm not quite sure. But if we go to the intent that the Government has articulated about why we even have this measure they've excluded vehicles which should be captured. They are vehicles traversing the current roading system in Auckland and therefore contributing to the congestion which the Minister seems to want to address.The other part I'd like to just touch on which hopefully he might actually want to comment on is the element which in the commentary is referred to as "price spreading" and which the Finance and Expenditure Committee recommended a clause change to allow monitoring of. I'm very interested to know how the Minister thinks that will in practice help to prevent what has been termed price spreading. If he is thinking for instance that it is clause 65ZC "Offences and penalties" particularly paragraphs (e) and (f) under subclause (1) which talk about failing to pay regional fuel tax in accordance or evading the payment I'd actually suggest that perhaps the Minister hasn't got the mechanics of how what has been termed "price spreading" will actually work.Having spoken to some fuel companies and I hope he did also it's not actually going to be an intentional act by a fuel company to take the tax and have it paid somewhere else. What is likely to happen is competitive forces in the Auckland market—because it's the first market to get these—are going to see discounting take place after the tax has been applied in the first place at the pump which will compete the price down. Now that means the fuel companies will get a lower return from each litre of fuel in Auckland and in order to make up their overall margins—because the cost of product will have gone up—they will end up charging more in some other part of New Zealand. That's not refusing to pay the fuel tax and it's not evading the fuel tax; it is simply adjusting to competitive pressures. So Minister perhaps you might like to tell us how your monitoring regime is actually going to stop that practice. Thank you."