Beaumont Carol: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Beaumont Carol: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chair. I rise to speak to the Road User Charges Amendment Bill. It is interesting to follow Mr Cam Calder who was talking about promises. Many of us on this side of the Chamber immediately thought of the sorts of promises that this Government has not kept. One promise that immediately comes to mind is the promise to have tax cuts. Tax cuts for ordinary New Zealanders were of course cancelled while tax cuts for the rich were a priority and were put through the House at a time when there was a real need for Government funding for a range of very important initiatives. 
Let me get back to the Road User Charges Amendment Bill. I rise to speak on Part 1 which is about the exemption for light electric motor vehicles from the requirement to pay road-user charges. As my colleagues have mentioned we are supportive of this provision. But I will comment on some of the points made in the explanatory note of the bill. Although it is true that greater use of electric motor vehicle technology would make a significant contribution to improving the efficiency of the motor vehicle fleet decrease reliance on fossil fuels and improve energy security—and it would be used of course with our comparative advantage in renewable electricity generation—those factors have been somewhat overstated in relation to this particular bill and the current take-up of electric cars. 
There has been a rather grand description of the contribution that will be made by this exemption. I would note that this is in the context of a lot of inaction by the current Government in terms of the environment. Certainly the previous Labour Government did a lot towards preparing for the introduction of electric vehicles and certainly it is fair to recognise that both the previous Government and this Government are hampered somewhat by the cost of electric vehicles and the fact that New Zealand is not a priority market for manufacturers to roll out electric vehicles. That means as others have mentioned that the exemption for light electric motor vehicles is best left for a shortish period of time because we do not want to see what is effectively a subsidy for those who can afford to purchase these cars when people on lower incomes cannot afford to buy such a car. 
I think it is important that we talk about climate change when we talk about electric vehicles. A number of speakers across the Chamber have already done so and I think it is a very important point to make. Michael Woodhouse’s contribution was to acknowledge the Government’s strong commitment to climate change. That is so true! In fact we can see that the Government is very committed to climate change and its terrible consequences by its complete inaction in leadership in this area at the moment. The Government is taking New Zealand from the situation of being a world leader to being an embarrassing laggard. Even worse—because I do not think that was actually what Michael Woodhouse meant—was David Bennett’s contribution. He started to say that Labour does not care about the environment. Frankly that is an unbelievable statement. 
When we compare the record of the previous Labour Government with this Government’s record we see that this Government is moving in the wrong direction on climate change. Since November last year what have we seen? We have seen the emissions trading scheme being put on hold at a significant cost to investment in planting in forestry. 
Paul Quinn 
: Part 1 Carol; Part 1. 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: I am speaking on Part 1: the environment and electric vehicles. A number of people have mentioned this thing. 
The Government has also repealed the moratorium on the future construction of baseload thermal electricity generation plants. It has rescinded the phase out of energy-inefficient incandescent light bulbs. It has failed to promulgate allocation plans as required by law. We have seen all sorts of things. The home insulation package that Labour put forward was a fully targeted package but it has been replaced with one that is untargeted. It will probably be picked up by those on higher incomes rather than by those who most need it. 
The Government has used every possible excuse for having a delay in setting up a carbon pollution reduction target. It says that was for all sorts of reasons—forestry data and so on—while most other countries have gone on and actually done something.