Fenton Darien: Road User Charges Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Fenton Darien: Road User Charges Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 04 October 2011. Volume:676;Page:21701. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 1 of the Road User Charges Bill particularly in relation to the purpose. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: Tell us about the Mad Butcher. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Yes well we can talk about the Mad Butcher but I would rather talk about this bill actually I tell Tau Henare. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Have you apologised yet? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well actually yes. If the member kept up he would know there have been apologies. But we are here to talk about the Road User Charges Bill. The member from Te Atatu might want to be a little bit more concerned about some of the people in his electorate who are concerned about this bill. They have been talking to me about the purpose of this bill and the concerns they have around the shift from nominated weights to gross weights as a basis for road-user charges. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: How could you? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: The member can yell and yell but I am here to talk about the purpose of the bill. 
As I said Labour supports this bill but we still have some major concerns that we want to talk about. The first concern is the shift from nominated weights to gross weights. The second part of the purpose of the bill that we are concerned about is the fact that we do not get to vote on the changes to this bill and the charges in this bill. Those were the things that came through from the select committee—the major concerns from the industry. The fact that the regulations will be sent off to the Minister—the regulations surrounding the charging of road-user charges; the changes to this—is a break in the basic democratic principle that there should be no taxation without representation. 
Tonight we are debating the Committee stage of a bill but we have no final numbers and the industry still does not know what is meant under Part 1 and the purpose when we start to talk about the changes to road-user charges—and in particular the changes a little bit further on in Part 1 around the road-user charges weight. That is in clause 5 where the calculation of weight in relation to road-user charges vehicles changes from a gross vehicle mass to a maximum allowable weight. 
I want to mention that there were a number of submissions. This is the controversial part of the bill. There are two parts to this; I will mention one in a minute but the second is about the fact that the charges will go through regulation and regulation will determine what the charges are for truck drivers who I thought were the friends of National actually. I thought they were the friends of the National Party but if those members think we have problems with the Mad Butcher they should start talking about their problems with the transport industry. I have been talking to a number of people in this industry. They came to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. They made submissions on this bill and they have been ignored; they have been ignored. They are extremely concerned because what this bill will do is impose costs on the business—the business that the National Government says that it supports. This is road transport both small businesses and larger businesses. National members have not listened. That is one part of our concern with regard to Part 1. 
Part 1 is very interesting because it outlines all sorts of interpretations and other things but that is one concern. A little bit further on we will talk about our concern as I mentioned about how these charges from the National Government will be determined by regulation without any reference to this Parliament. Why should the friends of the National Party be having to sign up to the fact that there are— 
David Bennett 
: How hard is it? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: What? 
Hon Shane Jones 
: The Warriors. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: The Warriors—oh look come on. Members opposite should be much more worried about their friends in the transport industry. They should be much more worried about that but they have no respect for them. Members opposite think that they can just sit there make rude comments and disgraceful comments about things that are completely irrelevant to this bill and at the same time ignore the major concerns in the industry about the shift from nominated weights to gross weights. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. We are actually not interested at this time about what is happening on the rugby field or with the Warriors. Just concentrate on Part 1 and can we just continue. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Thank you very much Mr Chair. As I was trying to say there are things that we support about this bill. We think that the purpose is sound but there are things we are concerned about as well. We want to make sure that we continue the road-user charges system by imposing charges on heavy vehicles and certain other vehicles for the use of the roads in proportion to the costs. We think it is good that we modernise and simplify the road-user charges system and that we improve compliance with and recovery of road-user charges. However there are issues which have not been resolved that were raised at the select committee. They are not resolved in the industry either and I think that the arrogant members on the other side of the Chamber will find that there are quite a lot of people in the transport industry who are not very happy about that. This issue has not settled down those people have not been listened to and I think members will find that there will be some agitation around a couple of proposals in this bill. 
We support the move to a 21st century electronic road-user charges system. We should be using whatever technology is available to us. But the move from nominated weights to gross weights for setting road-user charges is still causing quite a lot of angst. Members opposite can laugh sneer and do all the other things that they want to do. They can because they are arrogant and because they think that they do not have to listen to people any more. As we have seen in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee quite frequently when people bring issues of transport safety to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee— 
David Bennett 
: Great committee great committee. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: No it is not a great committee. It has a reputation now for not listening to the people who bring their issues both through petitions and through their submissions on Part 1. Although we support the changes in this bill overall there are concerns. I think it is incumbent on the National Government to start to listen to the industry— 
Hon Member 
: Who to? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Maybe David Bennett thinks that he does not have to listen to anybody. Maybe he thinks— 
Clare Curran 
: He’s got nothing to say. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well maybe he has nothing to say and maybe he has nothing to say about Hillside railway workshops either. 
Clare Curran 
: Doesn’t know how to say yes or no. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well that is true—yes or no. He does not know the answers to either of those. But I find the Committee stage of this bill—Part 1 in particular—particularly interesting because Labour has concerns about two aspects of this bill. We have continued to say what they are. We will vote for this bill overall but we are concerned about some things in this bill. Submitters came to the select committee and there were very very strong submissions. The National Government has chosen to ignore them. Those two things are in Part 1: the shift from nominated weights to gross weights as the basis for charging for road-user charges and a little bit further on is the fact that we cannot actually vote on the level of road-user charges that will be applied because that will be established later by regulation. 
The conversations that I have had with those in the industry show that there is real concern about it and real concern about the fact that this Government is so arrogant that it thinks it can decide on charges without consultation and without any proper process through this House. The National Government is so arrogant about these things but underlying this bill there is some real concern about the move from driver-nominated weights to gross weights. Members of the industry are looking for some real respect from this Parliament with regard to listening to what they have said about the charging and the change from driver-nominated weights to gross weights.