Genter Julie Anne: Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGenter Julie Anne: Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:16951. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green):I rise to speak on the Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill Part 1. The Green Party is supporting this bill and the principal changes that it is making which establish an annual charge in lieu of a road-user charge for some vehicles that are exempt from road-user charges and create a new regulation-making power to exempt from road-user charges vehicles that are not required to be registered. That is an obvious amendment that was overlooked when the original legislation was passed. The principal legislation was the Road User Charges Act 2012 which was a major overhaul of the road-user charges scheme which was passed in 2012. The Green Party can support these minor changes. We do think it is unfortunate but it does happen with the overhaul of a system as complex as our road-user charges system that there would be oversights and there would be things to rectify that would come back to this House and we can understand that. What is important is that it is following the principle of user pays and so it makes sense that if there are vehicles that are not using the road they should not have to pay road-user charges. That makes sense.But there are some missed opportunities obviously both with the principal legislation and this amendment bill to further rectify anomalies in the legislation—for example those using light diesel vehicles which Darien Fenton referred to. Those passenger vehicles are actually being charged perhaps a little bit too much given that they have greater fuel efficiency and that we want to incentivise greater fuel efficiency in our passenger fleet. Road-user charges are a way of applying fees in an economically rational way that will incentivise the purchase of vehicles that are going to be more efficient. So that is something that we could have looked at that was not looked at. Instead we just provide an exemption for fast tractors which are not usually using the road and exemptions for unregistered vehicles which is fair enough.One of the things that came about as a result of the principal legislation the Road User Charges Act 2012 is that the total contribution to the National Land Transport Fund from heavy commercial vehicles using diesel has now actually declined significantly whereas the contribution from petrol vehicles—passenger vehicles by and large—has increased. It used to be closer to a 50:50 split; now it is getting down to only about a third that is coming from these heavy vehicles. I suppose there is some cause for concern that at a time when we are allowing bigger and heavier trucks on the road which has consequences in terms of road maintenance and the requirement for ratepayers to invest in stronger bridges and what not there is a bit of a subsidy going on.We do want road freight to be as efficient as possible and the current system probably is not getting that outcome.One of the rationale for the changes to the road-user charges system was that we could increase compliance and reduce avoidance. So by and large the contribution from heavy commercial vehicles and trucks has declined but the argument was that there would be increased compliance. In fact from the financial review we saw that was not the case. So there is about the same amount of avoidance of paying road-user charges from what I can tell from the documents from the ministry and the New Zealand Transport Agency as there was before but by and large the road freight industry is paying less in its contribution to our national transport budget. Of course this cannot continue infinitely. Unless we invest in alternatives to the roads we are going to have a problem in the future of funding the transport budget because this Government has got some pretty ambitious plans to spend billions of dollars on just a couple of really expensive motorways that do not actually carry many of our freight tonne kilometres or many of our passenger trips.The Government’s decision to spend most of the transport budget on these few motorways and in particular to debt fund some of them as it is proposing in the case of Transmission Gully which is to be funded from private debt means that New Zealanders 20 to 25 years from now or even 30 years from now will still be paying back the money that was spent by this National Government on one motorway that carries you know a tiny percentage—less than 1 percent—of all vehicle trips in New Zealand. That is not a rational use of transport budget.But what is concerning is that we have seen that vehicle kilometres travelled on our road network have declined or sort of stalled since 2006. Vehicle kilometres travelled particularly by passenger vehicles have declined per capita. They have stagnated overall. This is a phenomenon that has been observed in other countries comparable to New Zealand. Australia the United States Canada and all other OECD countries really are seeing the same peak vehicle use and because of that we are having less revenue coming into the National Land Transport Fund than we anticipated. Over time we are going to have a serious funding shortfall between what the Government wants to spend on very expensive motorways what the Government needs to spend to maintain our existing road network at a high standard and ensure that it is safe and the amount of money that we actually have coming in from petrol tax and road-user charges.What is inevitably going to happen if the Government does not reprioritise its spend and cut some of the more superfluous spending and hopefully not take on this additional billions of dollars’ worth of debt to fund one particular project that has a very poor business case is that future Governments are going to have to put up road-user charges and the petrol tax. It is ironic that at a time when there is declining demand for our road network we are spending so much money on new redundant projects that are going to put us into debt and we are then going to have to raise money afterwards and charge people even more for the use of the roads while they are using them less. This is not a rational policy outcome in my opinion.Although the Green Party is happy to support this bill we think New Zealanders need to be aware that in the future we are going to be seeing increases to the petrol tax and increases to road-user charges to fund this National Government’s outrageous plans to spend billions on a few very low-value motorways. It is going to be bad for the country and it is going to be bad for road users most of all. I have said this to the Road Transport Forum and I have said it to the Automobile Association. This Government is not spending petrol tax dollars and the road-user charges money in a way that is best for road users. I think it has been very easy for the Government to make the claim that because it is spending money on roads it is good for road users. But if we take a rational analysis of it and take an objective look at where the money is going what the benefits are going to be and whether or not it is actually going to benefit freight or road users then the answer is that it is not.In the future we could have higher petrol prices and higher diesel prices and at the same time while people are looking for alternatives to the roads so that we can move our freight at a lower cost and avoid the high cost of diesel and while passengers are looking for an alternative to sitting in traffic in Auckland for example because they need to get to work and there has not been the investment in the passenger rail network that was needed they are going to have to be spending even more because we will be paying back the debt on Transmission Gully. Thank you.