Halbert Shanan; Brown SimeonSHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Thank you Mr Chair. I have a few questions for the Minister this afternoon. After working with the Minister when he was in Opposition he did have some very good ideas and signalled prior to the election his direction of travel for the transport portfolio. Since coming into Government I think that he's been quite narrow in his approach and his focus areas particularly when he talks about getting Aucklanders as an example around faster and safer. The actions that he's taken in his portfolio during the past few months actually isn't going to achieve those particular things. So while this is quite a technical bill and in some senses I support the sense of having a fairer system to fund our roading network our transport network—which we know actually does have some challenges in it; I accept that—potentially the way the Minister is going around his decisions isn't in line with the direction of travel that I believe our transport network in Auckland and in Aotearoa New Zealand needs to go.One of my questions is around the modelling that the Minister has done on the financial implications to Aucklanders. A number of his actions since he's become Minister are quite different to the way that the National Party campaigned with their election promises of no new taxes to New Zealanders and the repeal of the regional fuel tax. What we've seen actually in the Minister's decisions is additional taxes going on Aucklanders. So the cost savings here is $1.85 to the average family in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland from the repeal of the regional fuel tax—$1.85. Since then we've seen the Minister add on a $50 registration fee for people to register their cars. We've seen additional cost to fuel excise albeit in two years' time. And then here we see additional costs going on for EVs again to pay their fair share I guess. But the question for the Minister that I have is where does it end? You did promise Minister that there would be no new taxes. I accept that we need to fund our transport network and the need for infrastructure. At the same time you've taken away $500 million from the public transport network in Auckland and we do have a significant number of Aucklanders that use our public transport system. That creates an additional cost to them: double the cost for children that did have a free ride on our buses; half price for under 24s—those things have gone. So that's another cost to the cost of living for families in Auckland.So I guess I'm just trying to understand from the Minister what modelling he has done around the financial implications on Auckland families with these additional costs one after the other that he is imposing. And then the next question of course will be about his intent to put tolls on new infrastructure; that might be in Auckland.Andy Foster: Point of order Mr Chair. I don't think the member has gone anywhere near the bill at least not for several minutes. All of these things are about other issues which are not related to this bill which is a simple bill around road-user charges.CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The bill is being taken as a whole part and I will make the call whether he's starting to veer off the path. I do take the member's point and I think we all heard that so I encourage the members to stick to it.SHANAN HALBERT: Sure; thank you Mr Chair. I disagree with the member's point of order that he has taken because if one did care about the cost of living actually and the implications of cost on New Zealanders that's actually my discussion point which comes back to this particular bill. This Government piles on costs in its transport portfolio and that is the question that I'm asking the Minister: what modelling has the Minister done to understand the financial implications of this bill on families particularly in Auckland alongside the other additional costs that he has loaded up on them when he campaigned actually on no new taxes and on ensuring that the cost of living is a priority for Aucklanders?Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): I thank the member for his questions. There's a range of questions around a range of topics which aren't in the bill and so aren't relevant to the bill. But the one question was around the financial implications of the road-user charge. So ultimately what this is doing is it's ensuring that people who drive an electric vehicle who are currently not paying to use the road will start paying a road-user charge for the use of the roads. So ultimately for those people who have those vehicles they've had an exemption now since 2009 since the last National Government put an exemption in place and it was said that that would run out once we reached 2 percent. Ultimately that exemption ran out on 1 April. That decision was made by the previous Government. The exemption runs out on 1 April and so that decision had already been made. What we're doing here is responding to that to ensure that there's a fair approach particularly around plug-in hybrid vehicles. Plus the decision around the exemption running out and the time frame was decided by the previous Government. The problem that the last Government left us with is that one they consulted on a 20 percent reduction in the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle rate; that's what they consulted on. We're doing 50 percent. So we've actually made a really positive difference for people with plug-in hybrids.The other point here is we're ensuring that people who use the roads pay the fair share of their use of the roads. And so ultimately we're also providing a two-month transition to support those vehicles in. So this I think is a very appropriate piece of legislation. In fact I remember hearing the former Minister of Transport David Parker saying they weren't going to extend the exemption. So here we are. We are ensuring that there is a transition for these vehicles and we are providing a 50 percent reduction for those people who have plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.