Brown SimeonROAD USER CHARGES (LIGHT ELECTRIC RUC VEHICLES) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingHon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): I move That the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.This bill which we are now putting through Parliament through its second reading is an important bill in order to ensure that all vehicles that use our roads are paying towards contributing towards the maintenance and upkeep of our roading network. In 2009 the previous National Government put in place an exemption for light electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles from paying road-user charges (RUCs) in order to encourage their uptake. The exemption was always to end once those classes of vehicles reached around 2 percent of the light vehicle fleet which they have now passed so this legislation has been brought into the House in order to transition those vehicles into the road-user charge system on 1 April.I note that this legislation has been brought to the House and has had to go through a relatively quick process through a select committee due to the fact that the last Government failed to address these issues prior to the last election. They consulted back in 2022 in relation to what changes were needed to transition plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles into the system but failed to make any actual legislative changes.One of the key issues which I asked the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to look at is in relation to plug-in hybrid vehicles because of course if we didn't bring this bill to the House those vehicles would have to pay the full road-user charge rate by means of the fact that they both are powered by a petrol engine and also by an electric battery which can be plugged into the wall and receive electricity. So if this legislation wasn't brought to the House on 1 April this year the reality is that the owners of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles would be paying the full road-user charge rate of $76 for 1000 kilometres. In order to ensure that that didn't happen because of course that would be unfair based on the fact that they do consume fuel and pay fuel excise duty we put this legislation to Parliament in order to address the fact that the RUC rate needed to reflect the fact that they were also paying petrol excise as well. We proposed in that legislation a 30 percent RUC rate reduction based on the fact that those vehicles consume on average around 2 litres per 100 kilometres but also reflecting the fact that the real-world usage is often different from what the manufacturer data says. And of course we asked the committee to particularly look at that issue to ensure that we had a fair outcome from it.The Government has announced today that we will be ensuring that that RUC rate is extended to 50 percent reflecting the fact that actually particularly older plug-in hybrid vehicles do have a higher fuel consumption due to their battery life being either diminished or not being as good as some of the newer plug-in hybrid vehicles. So we think this is an ability to compromise and get to a better approach on this particular issue.Of course the select committee heard from hundreds of submitters over a very short period of time. We thank the select committee for the time that it took to listen to those submitters. As I outlined the reason for the short select committee was unfortunately due to the fact that the last Government didn't deal with this problem but I do just want to thank the committee for dealing with those hundreds of submitters and to be able to come back to the House in such a short period of time and I want to thank all the members of the committee for their contribution towards that.Of course the other change that this bill does make is in relation to battery electric vehicles and of course it requires those vehicles to pay the RUC rate of $76 per 1000 kilometres from 1 April this year. Of course this legislation isn't proposing to adjust the RUC rate as other members may be wanting to do.But I do just want to make the final point in this debate—two final points—in relation to the next steps. Firstly this is a transition. The reality is that this bill has highlighted the fact that there are significant variances in terms of how much vehicles pay to use the road depending on what type of fuel they use. So if you have a hybrid or a plug-in hybrid or a battery electric or a diesel the reality is that vehicles are paying a different amount to use the roads compared to others based on the fuel that they've used. That's because our system for paying to use the road has been based on fuel excise duty which charges a certain number of cents per litre rather than a predominantly road-user charge system which charges based on how many kilometres we use the roads. So it's this Government's intention that this is the first step in transitioning all vehicles to a road-user charge so that all vehicles regardless of what type of fuel they use whether they're a petrol car whether they're a hybrid whether they're a plug-in hybrid whether they're diesel whether they're battery electric whether they're hydrogen—regardless of what type of vehicle is using the road ultimately it is this Government's view that vehicles should pay road-user charges based on the weight and the distance that they use the road rather than based on the type of fuel that they use.So this Government will be progressing further changes in regards to moving all vehicles to a road-user charge based on distance travelled and vehicle weight. We're currently receiving advice on that and we'll be moving at pace and doing that as quickly as possible and I note that the select committee also made that particular point in their report back to the House.The final point is that there will be a two-month transition from 1 April. So there are over 100000 vehicles which will be impacted by this change. We note that that is a significant number of vehicles to bring into the road-user charge system. The New Zealand Transport Agency is communicating with all of those owners of those vehicles and there will be two months which by the end of that two-month period—by the end of May—all those vehicles will have had to have purchased their first road-user charge licence. So we've tried to provide maximum flexibility in order to smoothen that transition and also to ensure that the agency is able to have time people are able to have time before they have to have purchased their first road-user charge licence.So this Government supports the intent of this bill. We're pleased with the progress it's made. We are making the change around the plug-in hybrid rates but we're also as I said outlining our intent to continue to progress work for all vehicles to be paying a road-user charge based on distance and vehicle weight. I commend the bill to the House.