The Petrol Tax.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19160, 17 November 1927, Page 8

The Petrol Tax.

The best that can be said for the reply made to the South Island members who asked that the petrol tax -should be allocated to each Island in proportion to the number of vehicles in use is that the Government itself means well. No one will suggest or think that if the matter were to lie for all time in the hands of the Minister for Public Works there would be trickery or injustice. Mr Williams is not only above suspicion so far as his motives are concerned, but—a far rarer quality—above those fears of local retaliation which influence the average politician. But he is not beyond the influence of his Departmental heads, and that is what counts. No Minister, as matters stand to-day, can resist the pressure of the officials however hard he tries, and he is not expected to try very hard where Parliament itself has given way. If the disposal of the petrol tax is left to the Minister and the Highways Board it is left, in actual fact, tp the officers of the Public Works Department, who do not care where money comes from when they are considering how to spend it. And it is not as though there were nothing in past, and recent, experience to justify uneasiness. When a large sum was transferred some months ago from the revenue to the construction account of the Main Highways Fund—in other words, when the North Island borrowed from the South Island—the calming announcement was made that the transfer was merely temporary. The Act permitted the transfer, the South Island was told, and then, for the first time, really discovered, but an amendmeht, we were promptly assured, would be introduced which would provide for the re-transfer. In due time an amendment was introduced, and repayment is subject to the discretion of the Minister for Finance. In plain words, repayment is not definitely provided for at all. " The Minister for "Finance, after consultation with the " Board, may determine " to repay this year, or next year, or never, and it must also be remembered that as long as the transferred money—it is difficult to resist the temptation to use a stronger word—remains out of the revenue fund it is not covered by.the provision that it shall be spent in proportion to the number of vehicles in use in each Island. If the South Island, after an experience like that, were not uneasy over the Minister's demand that the tax should remain at his absolute disposal, it would deserve everything that the North Island could do to it.