Brown Simeon; Brownlee GerrySecond ReadingHon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you Mr Speaker. I move That the Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Standard) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. Mr Speaker thank you for the opportunity to speak on the second reading of this bill. It's been interesting listening to members on the other side of this House try to argue the potential of this bill and say Well actually the cost recovery principles aren't the right way to do it." Well actually this bill does two things. One is it has a small cost recovery element to it. That is only a very small element of this piece of legislation. The actual cost of operating the system is around $6.5 million per annum for the operation of the clean vehicle standard. For the members opposite to say "Well that's actually going to be the cost that's going to disrupt the market." well it is a very small amount ultimately of the entire cost of what actually—it's $5 to $10 or $20 a car. It's a very small amount. We think when it comes to services the Government is providing actually it's important that there is cost recovery in place because the alternative which the members on the other side of the House don't like to talk about is: who has to pay?The other alternative is taxes have to be increased on every single New Zealander—or the magic money tree. The magic money tree—just appropriate it. So this is about doing two things. This bill does two things. Firstly it allows for the clean vehicle standard to be amended by regulation and the argument in favour of that is to ensure that the market settings—we're not arguing about whether or not there should or shouldn't be a Clean Car Standard; we accept the importance of a Clean Car Standard; we accept the role that it plays in terms of ensuring New Zealand can get the mix of vehicles and that we can lower the emissions of those vehicles over time. But at the same time those standards need to strike the right balance between being stringent enough to ensure New Zealand continues to receive a clean supply of vehicles but not too stringent that importers cannot meet them leading to hiked vehicle prices for New Zealanders.Of course as members have been saying the overs and unders in the system need to be met. But if the standard becomes too tight and actually the supply of vehicles to achieve its standard is not available simply the penalties in the regime will be passed on to consumers and we want to avoid that.So the other side is also arguing for higher vehicle costs for New Zealanders. So they're arguing for two things. They want to increase taxes for New Zealanders and they want to increase the cost of buying a vehicle for New Zealanders. That's what the other side of the House is arguing by opposing this piece of legislation.The bill does two simple things and I think they're very important. I think the third thing that the other side of the House—well the point that the other side of the House are missing is that the legislation they passed requires me as the Minister of Transport to have started a review of the Clean Car Standard before 30 June 2024. Now of course we know 30 June 2024 is on Sunday. I was required to start that review before 30 June 2024. I started that review back in January following the law that the last Government set but the reality was they required me to review it but they'd already legislated the standard so that they required the Minister of Transport to review a standard that couldn't be adjusted. That's exactly the type of legislation the last Government put in the House. So if you think about bad lawmaking that is the epitome of bad lawmaking. In fact the officials at the time even said that it should be set by regulation rather than by legislation.This is a very sensible piece of legislation. It simply changes one very small part of the clean vehicle standard regime in terms of the ability to set the standard by the Minister rather than by legislation. Secondly it requires a cost recovery model rather than imposing the cost of that on to all New Zealanders and as the other side have failed to explain where are they going to find the money to pay that bill?SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed."