White Helen; Pugh MaureenHELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you. I was on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee when we heard the submissions on this bill and I remember the fear of many people about what would happen as a result. The manufacturers told us that they wouldn't be able to get enough vehicles in. We were told that there wouldn't be alternatives to the kinds of vehicles available. All of those things turned out to be rubbish. We've done good; this has been an extremely successful scheme and as a result there are less poisons flying around the electorate of Mt Albert because there are real issues with the kinds of emissions.It's actually one of those schemes that is neutral as to who it affects because actually if you've got a really good petrol low-emissions vehicle it got the discount too. So there are all these vehicles that are going to be brought in that do harm versus vehicles that are actually not even electric but do good. Those will no longer be available to ordinary New Zealanders when they become second-hand vehicles. Now I just want to explain that for the public because they don't necessarily know what the point of the scheme is or how it works and maybe that needs to be something that the new backbenchers in the Government understand too. This is a scheme that's not about the person who buys the vehicle in the first instance because they're wealthy. Like let's face it if you can buy a ute that was new you're not your hard-struggling tradie or your hard-struggling farmer because it's a new vehicle right? Actually those people buy second-hand vehicles. So if you front-foot it with the new vehicles what you get is the moving into the second-hand market. So about now we'll start to see those vehicles turn up in the second-hand market and be available to people much cheaper because we've created a pipeline and that's what Government does well right? It creates a pipeline and encouragement. This had a carrot this had a stick this had all the things that would work and it did.I wonder if that's why we haven't seen the RIS. The RIS by the way—for the normal public who don't use words like RIS"—is a regulatory impact statement. So it looks at what the effect of the legislation would be. And this is not a situation where you wouldn't want to see one of those on repeal. It's not a situation where there is nothing to be seen. In fact there's a lot to be seen; there's the evidence from the last year. It would be really interesting to see what's in that regulatory impact statement because there's been a year of something people said was not going to work and guess what! It's worked and it's worked really well and we would be able to see that.I actually think one of the best things about this bill is that we had a bill and an Act in Parliament which had regular review which was nuanced which allowed people to tweak it and change it as the climate changed to balance the amount that people were paying. It was a fantastic thing—it's not a bad thing that's a good thing—and I think that one of the things that the new Government is finding hard to swallow is that this was something that worked. There is nothing inconsistent about this and putting chargers all around New Zealand—if that ever happens—because you can do both. You know you can probably chew gum and walk at the same time people and you might need to learn to do it.So it's time to actually look at that RIS isn't it? It's time and I challenge the Government to give us that impact statement so we can have a look because why are they so afraid that the public might see what the impact of this is?Arena Williams: What might be in it?HELEN WHITE: I wonder what might be in it? I wonder what's in it. It's an interesting thing for a new Government to suppress such information isn't it? Hot into Government and already suppressing information to the public—quite shocking really and I'd be really interested in that if I was a journalist. I'd be interested because it shuts down the debate in this country it shuts down information and it allows myth-making.Now I really enjoyed the process of being involved in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and I enjoyed being part of the process of listening to the industry listening to the farmers listening to the New Zealand public on this. I really enjoyed it but I also learnt some lessons: sometimes people do act out of fear sometimes they act out of their own self-interest and some people just don't like to move with the times. Some people don't like to change. So yes we heard that manufacturers would never be able to supply us with enough vehicles. Well we have been able to get vehicles into this country; it was a much greater number than we expected that were bought in the time and yet we don't seem to have a problem with the pipeline of vehicles coming in. So we're actually helping move car dealers and car manufacturers into a new greener economy. We did really good here people and what a shame it is to see what's going on now. I hope that those people who were in the Opposition at the time and were on that committee watched and listened and learnt and at least learnt to take some of those self-interested groups with a grain of salt because they are very convincing when they tell you that they won't be able to supply the vehicles that it is too quick that we should wait for the rest of the world and then do it later. All of those things are lessons that you need to learn and I learnt during that process. I learnt what happens if you're a bit steely if you stick to your principles and you actually wait and see and let something play out. But you allow yourself in the legislation the capacity to change and to get nuanced to actually fix any problems that come up that you're a bit humble about the way that you draft things so you've got some flexibility in there. I learnt a lot of good things which I intend to take into Government in the next election. I know now how to be a good Government as a result of being on committees like that. I know what works and what doesn't and it's such a shame to see a bunch of people listening to lobbyists who are self-interested and taking such a backward step for New Zealand because what our young people want desperately is a future that involves less pollution actually an addressing of climate change actually some basic equity in this country. They want a grounded approach and this is not grounded. This is way from grounded. This kind of reactionary policy and the suppression of the evidence—that's the opposite of grounded. That is a Government that's running on myth. That's a Government that's running on very very old ideas of how things run.We have this wonderful process in New Zealand in our Government that we should be guarding jealously. We have a process in Parliament where we have select committees where we don't think we know everything when we come in here. We don't think "We've got it just ignore everyone." We listen to people we take account of people's views; it's called the select committee process. We send something—we get a regulatory impact statement so we can see what our officials are telling us. We don't necessarily take on board everything that they say—that's our job we get the ultimate judgment but we listen first. We let those groups and those voices come through and that engages the New Zealand public. You know I go into little primary schools and I talk to the kids in those primary schools about how great our system is in New Zealand that we actually do have a say. And if they want to write a submission on the Clean Car Discount and some seven-year-olds probably do then they can. They can write one of those submissions and we as a Parliament will listen to them and we'll engage with them. And I have been so impressed with that process. But where is it today? Why is this so urgent? There are no roll-outs of other things at the moment. There is no actual positive response at the present time. That's all in the wind. But we're going to get rid of something that's working without even looking at the evidence without sharing the evidence with the public without engaging with the public—without engaging with anyone we're going to get rid of it.Tim van de Molen: We just engaged in an election.HELEN WHITE: We're not engaging here Mr van de Molen. This isn't engaging; this is the start of an engagement. Usually this would be the very first thing we would do and then we would send things off to a select committee and then we would look at the evidence and then we would respond. And in fact in that way we'd probably be able to work together Mr van de Molen instead of this approach because that's actually the best of us.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member's time has expired.Debate interrupted."