Foster Andy; Kuriger BarbaraANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thank you Mr Speaker. My name is not Scott Willis but look I was privileged to chair the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that considered the submissions and considered this bill and I just want to start by just saying thank you to all the people: all the members of the committee on both sides of the House for what was genuinely generally a collaborative process and I also want to thank all the officials who worked very industriously with us who gave us I think really really good advice in a very very short period of time—and also the submitters. Now while we've heard that they had 36 or so hours—I think it might've been between 36 and 48 hours to make submissions—we got 518 submissions and I think they were really good quality and we got some really good input from submitters. So in the space of nine days we did all the work that was required of us to notify submissions to receive the submissions hear submissions to get officials' advice consider that advice make changes to the bill deliberate and report back.Now why did we end up because we did have minority—both minority reports said that actually they were concerned about the speed that we had to do this under and yes there was some pressure there but the reality is as we've already heard from Arena Williams that the then Labour Government actually started this conversation two years ago but didn't advance it. Now perhaps the incoming coalition might've advanced it earlier but look how many things we've had to do in the first hundred-odd days of this Government. So I don't think that anybody should point the finger. I don't think that anybody on that side should point the finger at this side and say Well you know it was truncated in terms of its time frame." We did hear from the public and we responded to the public and we did the best that we possibly could.This bill was expected. The application of road-user charges (RUC) was expected for electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). This is not a new tax; it is something that was always expected. EVs and PHEVs have been exempted from this until we got to roughly 2 percent of the vehicle fleet and we've got to that point and therefore Labour had started that work. The coalition Government now is continuing that work and completing that work to say actually we're bringing EVs and PHEVs into the RUC system. If the bill were not passed EVs and PHEVs will be required to pay RUC at full rate; there'll be no discount. There is a discount which is going to apply to PHEVs; there would be no discount if this bill was not there in front of us and was not passed.The second thing is that there would also be no two-month if you like grace period for those owners of EVs and PHEVs to actually get their RUC—1 April so this weekend people would have to have a RUC certificate would've paid for their RUC and if they weren't they would be able to be fined. Now they're going to be given two months of grace. The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) is going to be able to reach out to those owners and try and make sure they know what is going on they know what their responsibilities are and they've got a little bit of time to do that. So this piece of legislation is really important for both those reasons.Now we've heard a lot from the Hon Julie Anne Genter about climate change—Hon Member: We've heard a lot.ANDY FOSTER: —well we have heard a lot; yeah we have certainly heard a lot—but this is not about climate change; this is about access as you heard from my colleague Cam Luxton. This is about access to the roading system. It is about EVs and PHEVs paying a fair price for access to the roading system. Largely our submitters were from the industry or they were the owners of EVs and PHEVs. They weren't petrol car owners they weren't diesel car owners or diesel vehicle owners; they were people who were actually going to have to pay this cost and they said almost entirely—in fact it might've even been entirely—"This is fair that we pay towards the use the operation the maintenance the resilience of the road network." The only argument was around the rate and what is the fair rate.So two parts to this: first of all PHEVs. The issue of course with PHEVs is they partly use petrol they partly use battery and therefore it's a complicated arrangement because the petrol part is already paying through fuel excise duty. The battery part at the moment is not paying anything but come 1 April they will be paying for some component of RUC and the question was how much component of RUC and what is the right level of discount? We discussed quite a number of different possible justifications for different levels of discount. We started off at 20 percent which is where the initial consultation happened that the then Labour Government started two years ago. The Ministry of Transport (MOT) had given advice that actually because there was a range of different vehicles within the PHEV fleet—and let's bear in mind that it's only 30000-something vehicles; it's not a huge number of vehicles but there's still a range of different ages vehicles that are used in the urban environment vehicles that are used in the rural environment and every single one of those will be unique. So the MOT suggested that 30 percent was the right discount. We had some advice that they also provided to us that came from Europe which said they'd looked at 9000 PHEVs in Europe which suggested that maybe a 50 percent discount was the right number.You could actually make an argument for anything probably between 20 maybe 30 and 50 percent and we've ended up by hook or by crook—and actually I'm not at all upset by that—at 50 percent. You know that was one of the things that the Minister of Transport actually asked us to do specifically in the terms of reference: we were asked specifically to look at what was the right rate of discount for PHEVs. We've ended up with 50 percent and I think right across the board right around the House and in the community 50 percent is seen as actually pretty good. We're pretty happy with that. So I think ka pai well done for all of us there.There was a question that was asked in the end of the committee stage if I might say which didn't actually get answered because the closure motion actually was unopposed at that point in time. It didn't get answered but there was a question asked in committee about what the average saving would be—and we're always talking averages in these things because every vehicle is different every vehicle circumstance is different. What was the average saving going to be? Now if you used 11000 kilometres the MOT's advice was that the average saving across a year will be $165. So it's a reasonable number but it's not massively significant. And that total cost across the fleet which was the other part of the question which was asked was somewhere between $4.2 million and $5.7 million. So the numbers we're talking about are not huge but I think we've ended in a good place for the PHEV fleet.In respect of EVs there was an industry submission which you've already heard about which argued for a slight reduction. The reason for that reduction is because petrol vehicles have become more efficient. Originally petrol vehicles or less-efficient petrol vehicles would've been paying the same level of RUC as the diesel fleet but now because petrol vehicles—and that's good news—have become more efficient they're actually going to be paying slightly less on average than an EV or a diesel vehicle. So there is a little bit of an argument there but I would make the point that when the opportunity was there during the select committee process to say "Does anybody want to have a crack at reducing the rate for EVs?" nobody did. No party wanted to move that.I also note that during the committee stage of the House yesterday when it came to the final vote it was unanimous—it was unanimous. So I'm disappointed to hear the speech from the Hon Julie Anne Genter to say that the Green Party won't support this. I think look the amount we're talking about here is not a huge difference between the full RUC and the $60 rate that was being suggested there. But the reality is going through that process there were opportunities to tackle this; they were not taken and I think people should reflect on that.Just to finish off with a couple of other things I do want to just touch on the minority views that were there in front of us. The first one from the Labour Party the concerns were about pace—I've already answered that issue—and the PHEV rate. The reality is we've actually ended up with a PHEV rate that the Labour Party supported so I'm hoping they're going "Hey that's great." With respect to the Green Party the same issues were raised with the EV rate and again I've already addressed that issue. They had the opportunity to tackle that; they didn't take that opportunity and I think they should reflect on that.Look finally the point I'd like to make is that regardless of what the rate is at this point in time there are attractions to having EV vehicles because they are cheaper to run; they certainly don't have to pay the emissions trading scheme rate. The biggest issue with EVs which we heard from the industry as well is they're actually more expensive at the moment to buy and the New Zealand market is not going to overcome that. What's going to happen is that if the market internationally makes it more attractive it brings the price down of construction of those EV vehicles and more people will buy them over time. But regardless the aim here is to move towards RUC right across the board. One of the other comments that the select committee made is that NZTA needs to be much more efficient in its RUC administration process and we believe that it could do that.The last thing I did want to say is that the issue of funding our transport system has been an issue that's been exercising the minds of officials. I know that because I was involved in that if you like from the local government side of things. I know that officials were thinking about that very deeply over quite some number of years and Governments of both colours over quite some number of years. We know that as petrol vehicles have become more efficient as EVs start to become a greater proportion of the vehicle fleet our transport system needs money. It needs money to be able to build to maintain to operate roads and public transport systems and so on and so we are going to need a new way of funding our roading system. That will be RUC and that is where we need to move as quickly as possible. I commend this bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm going to call Scott Willis but before I do I just want to note that this is normally a split call but I've been advised that Te Pāti Māori have given their call to the Green Party so it will be a full call. Thank you."