Willis ScottSCOTT WILLIS (Green): Kia ora. Thank you Madam Speaker. Thank you for the questions and the responses from the other side. One thing I'm very proud about is my sons. I have two sons who both live in Wellington at the moment and when my youngest son moved to Wellington he and his partner at the time bought an electric vehicle (EV). They bought a second-hand EV and it cost them $5000—a Leaf that they have driven around and used for transport around the city. I think that illustrates the importance of incentives to decarbonise because my sons are like many youth really concerned about their future. They are concerned about climate chaos that will ensue if we do not reduce emissions at pace and so they want to do the right thing. What they did was purchase an EV—Simon Court: What has this got to do with collecting money to pay for roads?SCOTT WILLIS: If you will listen you will hear but—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not the you". Don't bring the Speaker into the debate. Please refrain from using the word "you". You can interject but—SCOTT WILLIS: Thank you. So I have heard that the road-user charge (RUC) is going to be applied right across the board and that's great. It is such a pity that we weren't waiting until something could be done properly rather than rushing something through. I've heard that there was an exemption in place until 2 percent of the fleet was zero emission and that's been reached and so legislation was needed at that point. But 2 percent of the fleet at zero emission is ridiculous. It is minimal. Norway survived different flavours of Government to achieve substantial decarbonisation of land transport and the main signal all Norway's Governments have given is that it should always be economically beneficial to choose zero-emission or low-emission cars so their ambition is to make sure that all new cars are zero-emission by 2025. [Interruption] Now this is an ambitious goal that is obviously working up the Government because I know that the Government is keen to work up the fossil fuel sector. We know that. We've heard that from the Minister for Resources but the Climate Change Commission has made clear that the Government should continue with incentives to meet our climate goals. The Climate Change Commission has been really clear on this and that's really the key problem with this bill because it is sloppy work. It's sloppy it's chaotic it's destructive. That's what we've come to expect from this Government—rushed through under urgency without careful thought.But at least it has the good value of uniting Aotearoa. Māori have never been more united. Rainbow have never been more united. Youth have never been more united and I am really looking forward to the school strike for climate.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I please ask if these groups are united on the RUC charge? That's what the bill is about. SCOTT WILLIS: And the motor industry has almost universally contested this bill. So what this bill shows is that the Government is not listening to business. It's not caring about progressive business. It's not listening to the Climate Change Commission. It's not listening to progressive amendments that were put forward that could have helped and that could have made a difference. It is not paying attention. Is it simply because this Government is so full of climate change deniers that they do not want to work on solutions? What we know—what we know—is that there will be many many billion dollars that will have to be spent because of this Government's inaction on climate. We know that this is going to cost us heavily. We know that this is kicking a can—a big can—way down the road because the Climate Change Commission suggests that this is going to cost us a fortune. The Climate Change Commission has talked about—let's see—how the inaction on climate is going to cost us somewhere between a minuscule $3.3 billion to maybe $23.7 billion—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Willis we are halfway through the 10-minute call. I want this to be bought directly back to the RUC bill please. Thank you.SCOTT WILLIS: Thank you. In relation to the cost and the disincentivisation of EVs this is going to cost us in missing our climate targets and that cost will come to us when we have to buy offshore credits. I have friends who are tradies driving EVs. I have colleagues who are tradies whose businesses depend on driving EVs—Helen White: Point of order Madam Speaker.SCOTT WILLIS: —and this is an incredible—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have a point of order from Helen White. Helen White: I am actually sincerely trying to hear the debate and I can't hear the member speak because of the noise.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. We'll just note that interjections are fine but not overly loud ones. Thank you.SCOTT WILLIS: Thank you. My friends and tradies I know who work with EVs are now reconsidering because of this unfair cost that we could have addressed through amendments to this bill. My colleague the Hon Julie Anne Genter proposed very sensible amendments for example to have a fairer rate of road-user charges of $60 per 1000 kilometres and that aligned with the industry request. This is a lot simpler to ensure that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater.We of course recognise that we need to have some roads but we also recognise that we need to have rail and we need to have ferries that'll connect the two islands and those have been kicked to touch as well haven't they? Simply because we seem to have a Government of climate change deniers.But the thing that unites the Greens with the motor industry on this is that there is sloppy legislation that could have been fixed and could work better and it is going to take the 2026 election to ensure we can get back on track to climate action. Because quite simply this country and the globe can't support the type of head-in-the-sand climate inaction and backward-looking proposals that this Government keeps on throwing at us. We need to ensure that we have land transport that is fully decarbonised and that is going to mean low-emission vehicles zero-emission transport with their fair contribution to road-user charges but let's ensure that rural communities are not paying more because they drive on poor roads. Let's ensure that we divvy it up to ensure that those people who are who are driving in heavier vehicles—SUVs and utes—pay their fair share of road-user charges.So let's wait until we have a whole system approach rather than just rushing through things. This is the problem with this Government: it is unable to do legislation well. It would rather rush things through and do it in a sloppy and chaotic way. It does not care about the future we are leaving for our children and for our grandchildren and that is the real issue we have here.We want to do good by business to progressive business who want to help decarbonise and we are stymied by a Government that has stuck its head in the sand while the sea was rising. This is the issue we have to deal with and quite frankly I'm sick of hearing from the Government that they want to do something on climate and yet demonstrate in every single action that they are climate deniers. This is the shocking shocking thing we have to confront every day in this House and I would love this Government to propose something that showed that they were working for the country rather than against our future.There is so much we could do here and so so much that we've missed simply by an ideological position and a willingness to reject any compromise and any discussion with this side of the House. That's the sad sad fact—that this Government is ideologically driven to do the worst they could do to take us on a great leap backwards. Back to the future back to baccy—backwards backwards backwards. Thank you Madam Speaker."