Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Mr Speaker if you'll bear with me I am going to explain some of the changes that have occurred in this bill. Because there were a number of changes which Government members are very keen on in this reading that they weren't so keen on in the select committee room—Tom Rutherford: Oh well we voted for them.ARENA WILLIAMS: The member opposite—Tom Rutherford—Hon Member: He's from Hamilton.ARENA WILLIAMS: —he says We voted for them". He's not from Hamilton and he says "We voted for them". Actually that wasn't the case and I will explain that for the House's record if you'll bear with me. But Mr Speaker what I first want to do is to tell you why the amendment that the Transport and Infrastructure Committee made is important and to explain it for the record so there is no confusion about it.This was inserted at the select committee stage. The select committee instructed the Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) to develop an amendment to the bill as proposed by the Minister—that was supported by a bare majority of members—that changed the discount rate for PHEVs or for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. That was because a 2022 study of 9000 plug-in hybrid EVs in Europe suggested an average fuel consumption of 4 to 4.4 litres of petrol per 100 kilometres. That's relevant because the average fuel consumption of light petrol vehicles in New Zealand is around 8.1 litres per 100 kilometres and those rates are the rates that the select committee heard from officials from Waka Kotahi should be taken into account when designing the discounts for plug-in hybrid vehicles.When the select committee heard evidence from the 518 interested groups and individuals who submitted on the bill it was clear—and in further advice from Waka Kotahi—that the evidence for what the discount rate should be was limited. But that European study supported a 50 percent discount instead of a 30 percent discount and that's why PCO was asked to draft an amendment.At the time the committee came to vote on the report the report is drafted as if the 30 percent discount was the one that would come back to the House at committee stage. But that is not the bill that we are debating now. So the select committee's report does not record the majority—well the unanimous—vote that then occurred to support the 50 percent discount. So anyone looking through the records will see that the select committee's report treats it as if it was a 30 percent discount whereas the Labour amendment that was put up and drafted by PCO for 50 percent discount was the one that is supported and now the Minister has confirmed will be supported at committee stage.So it is Labour's position that we consider that a 50 percent discount in the road-user charge rate would be better reflective of the relative efficiency of plug-in hybrid EVs compared to petrol vehicles and we recommended amending the clause because of that.So that is how procedurally we have got here. I think it is a good change and I'm glad that the Minister has accepted the change from the select committee. He asked the select committee to consider that particular point and we did have some really good cross-partisan discussion about how to make this rate an effective thing for PHEV drivers. Because drivers and users have already invested in their cars. This is not a decision that only affects future purchases and incentives on users; this is actually a decision which makes someone's investment in their personal car—or their investment in their business if they are someone like a taxi driver or an Uber—significantly different about the way that the costs will fall out for that person. So we heard from a number of submitters who drove PHEVs themselves that they would need to do things like hang up the keys on their PHEV because they wouldn't be able to operate that as a taxi or to change the way that they were using their car and they would use it less if that rate was applied. So I'm glad that we have made that change.This should be viewed alongside the removal of the Clean Car Discount. That was something that the committee heard evidence on being a very effective tool of incentivising the uptake of plug-in hybrid vehicles but that that went along with the policy for plug-in hybrid vehicles not to pay user charges. Those two things together would have otherwise been removed and so there would have been a sort of double change for PHEV users that we didn't think was appropriate and that's why we proposed the amendment.So I want to thank my fellow committee members despite it being a very short submission period that was I think an example of committees being able to work together well. That committee was chaired by Andy Foster in a way that allowed discussion around this particular point and on the point of how much subsidy should be applied to EVs. These are technical pieces of legislation; we needed a lot of advice from the officials from Waka Kotahi and the transport ministry and I thank those officials who engaged with us in what was a very very quick time frame for them to need to turn around reports.That said it was very difficult for the committee to consider what the policy change was in the context of dumping the Clean Car Discount and the Government's priorities on emissions and further this idea that all cars would be moving towards road-user charges and the effect of this interim change on that broader change when we had no time frame for that. Those are things that should have been and could have been worked through by what was essentially a very good cross-partisan committee that was engaging in the policy detail; it was engaging with the technical advice that we were receiving and was asking good questions of submitters.It is there that this House should be able to get into the detail of legislation and it is a casualty of the urgency process when committees are not able to do that fully and engaging with something which has been called a "transitional process". This will not be a transitional process that will be resolved quickly.A transitional process—for the benefit of the Government members who have made these submissions today—would have been to extend this legislation because this legislation had been extended several times. That should have been the policy that we examined it against: extending the exemption for EVs and PHEVs as has been Government previously—the appropriate thing to compare this change to. Instead we were being asked to compare it as if it would not continue at all and that was not the right policy equivalent to be making at the select committee time. But we were doing that because we were under time pressure.Just speaking a little bit to the thanks to the submitters. I too joined with my other fellow committee members in thanking the submitters who made submissions in what was essentially a day to put together those submissions—518 of them took the time to do that and they were technical submissions. They included a breakdown of the numbers and their projections about how not only this policy decision that the Government is taking would affect users now but users in the future. I believe that the numbers that the submitters provided us with also influenced and helped the advice that we were receiving from officials who were working under a very short time frame.That goes again to the need to prioritise these pieces of technical legislation through select committee stages. It is useful for this House to have those submissions it is useful for the officials to be able to engage with it and it is useful for parliamentarians to appreciate what policy choices we're being asked to make.Because not to bang on about this process but it is not right that we are in this position of using a nine-day select committee process because the previous Government delayed it. We are in this process because this Government did not prioritise this on their legislative agenda. If this had been ready for first reading earlier in the process the select committee would have been able to undertake a four-week select committee inquiry or they would have been able to extend this legislation while we were making these decisions. Using the length of the select committee process could have been an ordinary one and that would have helped this House make reasonable and rational and cross-partisan decisions about this.It's important that we acknowledge what we're doing here. We are supporting this bill because we do need to make sure that people are paying their fair share on our roads. But what "fair" is—Grant McCallum: Cover up your own inaction.ARENA WILLIAMS: —when we're—I hear from the other side "to cover up our own inaction". I've just explained that it is in fact the Government's prerogative to use urgency but I can help the new member with understanding Government processes around urgency a little bit later on. He can meet me down in the select committee room and I can school him again on the use of Standing Orders as I did last week. But you know I'll help him along then. But for this reading we do support this bill. There is change needed but the policy we should have been considering is how to appropriately take into account emissions and the environmental considerations that go alongside those considerations like the Clean Car Discount which have been removed. If a Labour Government had been making these kinds of changes we would have done that alongside the Clean Car Discount. We would have been protecting people's ability to choose better options for the environment and that's why we need to be able to really get into the detail in the select committee discussions and understand what's being chosen between.Grant McCallum: Had your chance.ARENA WILLIAMS: I hear from the other side that we had our chance. I did have my chance in the committee and I used it."