Shaw JamesJAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): I rise to take a call on the Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I just want to start by talking about how excited the Government of course is about this announcement. It has been a long time coming this piece of legislation. It was first announced on 5 May and it was then announced again on 10 June and then again on 12 August and then again on 24 August and then again on 31 August and then again on 9 September and then again 3 days later on 12 September and then again on 14 September. This bill has been announced no fewer than eight times since 5 May so it is great to see a piece of legislation that actually backs up the eight announcements of this policy in the last 6 months.The Government having announced this bill eight times of course I need to draw attention to the Treasury advice which is that it will not be effective". In particular I am talking about the part of the legislation that relates to electric vehicles. I will come back to that in a minute.First I just want to say why it is important that we encourage the mass take-up of electric vehicles in New Zealand—that we really pull out the stops on this. First of all transport makes up 20 percent of all of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions and 90 percent of transport emissions come from ground vehicle transport. So if we were able to click our fingers and switch all of New Zealand's ground vehicle transport to electrics then you would see an enormous decrease in our greenhouse gas emissions. On that front alone it is very important that we encourage the mass take-up of electric vehicles.The other thing of course is that it would do wonders for our balance of payments deficit. Our balance of payments deficit at the moment is running at just over somewhere between $7 billion and $8 billion and we import about $6 billion worth of petrol and diesel into New Zealand—petroleum for our ground vehicle transport. The mass take-up of electric vehicles would virtually close our balance of payments deficit.However the legislation as it has been supplied to us so far will not do this. As Treasury says it will not actually be effective in encouraging the mass take-up of electric vehicles cutting pollution and reducing our balance of payments deficit.The single most significant policy that the Government could adopt in order to encourage the mass take-up of electric vehicles is to remove fringe benefit tax from electric corporate fleet vehicles. Something like 80 to 90 percent of all new vehicles sold in New Zealand are corporate fleet vehicles and they typically remain part of the fleet for about 3 to 5 years before becoming part of the second-hand market which is of course where the vast majority of New Zealanders get their vehicles from. The research that the Green Party did at the end of last year and at the beginning of this year showed that around the world in those countries that have got really significant take-up of electric vehicles—most notably Norway but also others—removing fringe benefit tax was the single most significant thing that you could do. It would drop the upfront price of the vehicles by somewhere between 20 and 30 percent which would put them on a par with combustion engine vehicles.Companies want this. I mean this policy was actually suggested by Business New Zealand which you would think would be a natural ally of the National Party on this policy. So we think and we are hoping that in the select committee stage we can encourage the Government to change the bill in order to adopt this one measure that will actually do what the Government wants the bill to do which is to encourage the mass take-up of electric vehicles.I do have to reference this absurd notion saying that electric vehicles using bus lanes will somehow convert everybody in the country to go out and spend twice as much money on an electric vehicle as they currently spend on a combustion engine vehicle. It is going to increase congestion but it is not going to encourage the mass take-up of electric vehicles. What it means is that people who have got a significant amount of money and can afford an electric vehicle will get a fast ride down the bus lane and everybody else—the vast majority of people who cannot afford one of these vehicles—will be stuck in congestion in the regular lanes. It is an absurd policy and the only people whom it is going to encourage to buy electric vehicles are extremely well-off people who frankly if they want one can buy one already. It is a ridiculous policy which is presumably why Treasury said it will not be effective.In conclusion we are supporting this bill to select committee. We will be looking to make improvements to the electric vehicles clauses and the microgrids regulatory clauses but in the meantime we support this bill."