van de Molen TimTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Madam Chair. A very timely call because my proposed amendment in my name actually follows on quite nicely from what we have just heard from Melissa Lee. I am proposing a further amendment under new section 65A in clause 5 to incorporate any vehicle or equipment that is primarily operated for the purposes of and in the course of operations for the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF). Having been a member of the New Zealand Defence Force for a number of years I can certainly understand and appreciate the need for an exemption in this space.Firstly I'd like to start by acknowledging the fantastic work that all members of our New Zealand Defence Force conduct both onshore and offshore in their roles and their service for New Zealand. Further to that I think it's appropriate to acknowledge that to be operationally ready which the New Zealand Defence Force always aims to be it takes significant ongoing training to maintain develop and enhance those skills.Now any aspect of that training typically will incorporate some form of vehicle. Logistics is a huge part of any defence operation. Without logistics you don't have a firm base to shift you around to get where you need to be to achieve what you want to get done. So that is a major part of any operation and when we conduct training exercises there's a detailed budget that is worked through at the officer level to determine what the costings are for any specific training exercise. Of course fuel comes into that as well and so in this particular instance I think it's really important to acknowledge the need to exempt the New Zealand Defence Force from this regional fuel tax because otherwise we're just going to see an additional cost burden on them that actually they have no further income to offset and to enable them to continue to provide the expected level of training and competencies that they are tasked to achieve.Now if you consider the Auckland region covered by this fuel tax there are of course a number of bases operating within that region and also a number of other training areas that are utilised by the NZDF for a range of different tasks and operations. So it's really important that we have the ability to exempt them so that they can conduct training per their expected level of competence to make sure that they maintain that operational readiness not simply for deployments offshore but of course to make sure that we're able to respond in any civil defence emergencies as well. Actually it was disappointing to note in the Budget that we had recently that there was not a significant increase for the New Zealand Defence Force despite what we had heard from the Minister of Defence Ron Mark earlier on.Look I would just note that having this additional burden placed on their budgets from a training perspective in terms of the additional fuel costs would make it significantly harder to actually achieve their desired outcomes from a training perspective and that's really important when we look at what budget is set within the NZDF structure for specific training exercises etc. So that would be one area that I'd really encourage Minister Phil Twyford to consider exempting and I would welcome any feedback he has on that if he is to take another call.Now another amendment I had under my name was with regard to the same clause 5 new section 65A another exemption that I think is appropriate—in this case to exempt any vehicles used in the course of commercial tourism operations that occur off-road. So we're talking here about four-wheel drive tours quad bike tours two-wheel motorbike tours etc. There's a number of operators around the Auckland region that would fall under this category: places like Scenic Off-Road 4x4 Tours Trackwise 4WD the Waiheke BBQ Tour Waiheke Safaris 4 Track Adventures—all these tourism operators who contribute significantly to the overall tourism income that we as New Zealand enjoy and who would be captured by this tax as well. So I think it's important to exempt them given that they are not using our roading network for any of their specific tours or operating aspects of their business conduct. So that would be another area that I would ask the Minister to consider exempting as well.Just on that aspect from the tourism side of course we've just heard a recent announcement around including now a tourism tax for people coming into the country and now we're talking about—if these operators were not exempted—having an additional cost to operating their business which would most likely be passed on to the end user. So we've got tourists coming in and being hit with a new tax and hit with an increased cost as well. So I'd encourage exemption for that amendment as well.