Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's my first opportunity to speak in the Chamber in this calendar year and so it's good to be back and it's good to be back seeing colleagues from across the Parliament debating issues that matter. Relatively cost-neutral" is what the former highwayman Robin Hood used to say of people as he was robbing them on the highway! The only problem was that when Robin Hood was talking about relatively cost-neutral interferences in marketplaces Robin Hood was robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Well this is a piece of legislation that is reverse Robin Hood—reverse Robin Hood. This is a piece of legislation that takes from those who can least afford it who have the smallest number of choices available to them who have the largest impacts of costs upon them and it takes from that group of people and it gives to those who can afford who do have choices who do have options and who want to drive electric vehicles. Now I should say at the outset that I'm a convert. I've been driving a 100 percent electric Hyundai Kona now for just over three years and in fact have only just in the last couple days clicked over 100000 kilometres driven mostly around the beautiful Coromandel electorate. It's served me very well. It's a car that has been a lot of fun to drive. I'm looking forward to the next 100000 kilometres in the car. But I bought that car for a variety of reasons not because it was inexpensive but because I wanted to do several things. First of all I wanted to prove to people and myself that actually a 100 percent electric vehicle was a viable option for a constituency MP doing quite high mileage around one of the large provincial electorates in New Zealand and I've been able to do that very effectively. I wanted to get into an electric vehicle (EV) because naturally I have an interest in environmental matters and climate change matters and that is absolutely a component in the decision to have a low-emissions vehicle and to go into an EV.Then I also I guess looked at the maths at the dollars and cents. And yes there was a significantly higher cost point of entry to get into the EV but the cost of running it on a day-to-day basis is very low. Over the course of the 100000 kilometres that I've clocked up around the beautiful Coromandel electorate in almost three years I think that's a vehicle that has significantly saved me as a consumer and as a driver money. The reason for that is because electricity is considerably less expensive than fossil fuels. Just to give you some context I used to drive a large Ford Territory and it was not unusual for me to be spending something close to $200 a week on petrol at the fuel pump. When I went into my EV I guess my domestic electricity bill went up $50 a month and so the dollars and cents was another factor.This piece of legislation this Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill seeks to do what Labour socialist Governments always like to do: they like to tell people how they should live their lives what cars they should buy how they should be taxed and always have their hand—the hand of big State big Government—in other people's wallets and pockets. And that's what they like to do because they don't understand the fundamentals of economics and that's why the country is in the economic shambles and mess that it is and it's going to take a National Government to reconfigure realign and bring back some sense of balance to the economy with our friends from the ACT Party when we get the first opportunity at the next election.We support the broad concept in the National Party of making polluters pay. I heard the Minister say "Oh yes well all the parties in the House—in fact every party in the House—the zero-carbon legislation was passed in this House without dissension." And that was because one party didn't turn up and vote. But that would have been just one vote at that stage—and yes we supported it. But I heard the Minister James Shaw in the House earlier today talking about the broad direction of travel. And he's right; we do agree on the broad direction of travel. We do understand the need to decarbonise our economy over the next several decades and beyond. And we do understand that there is a range of options and policy levers that are available to the Government of the day. But we do support the setting up of the climate commission and we do look forward to their recommendations. But we reserve absolutely the right to debate discuss argue and differ with the Government on issues of policy and fine detail albeit that the broad direction of travel towards net zero is set and agreed. That policy of net zero—that path that direction towards it—will be maintained by a re-elected National-led Government along with our colleagues in the ACT Party.But we won't be tinkering in the way that this Labour Government likes to tinker likes to tell people how to live their life and how they can actually as a Government tell people what they should do and how they should do it. And the thing that annoys me most about this legislation is the perverse nature of it. It's actually from a Government that on the face of it purports to be a Government of kindness and caring. Actually when you look down into the reality of it it's exactly the reverse that is true because the people who will be most punished by this piece of legislation are those who can least afford it those who have the smallest range of options in front of them and those that have already too much cost. Now a truly enlightened and truly progressive Labour Party would actually look at some of the legislation that has taken place in other jurisdictions and they'd be looking at legislation that encouraged the uptake of EVs based not on your ability to buy a high-end car but actually to look at ranges of options policy settings that would encourage middle and low income earners to get into EVs. Because that's really where the best benefit is. The people who can currently afford to buy EVs even with the gift of free money are going to make that decision anyway. I was appalled by the Minister's lack of knowledge and understanding of the marketplace and this happens from someone who's come from the pedigree of the trade union and the trade hall—they literally don't understand it. He stood up there and he said "Look look the number of EVs that have been purchased has gone up dramatically since we started giving away the free money." Since we started giving away the free money! Well there's no skill Minister there is no skill wit or ability in giving away free money particularly when it's other people's free money—other people's free money that you give away with such abandon and such ill-conceived thought and understanding for what the impacts are on the people who have to pay to give you the money that you're giving away to other people. Now that's classic socialism and we don't support that. We think that there are far better ways of doing it.In fact talking about housing in today's New Zealand Herald—but actually it could equally be applied to this piece of legislation—none other than that bastion of left-wing literary comment Simon Wilson says "It's been the biggest transfer of wealth from the struggling to the well off and from the young to the old ever seen in this country." And that's exactly as it is with this piece of legislation. It's the antithesis of what a traditional socialist Labour Party should really be doing in supporting their base. And the people who are driving the Teslas around the beautiful Coromandel—most of them can actually already afford it and they would have bought it anyway. Part of the reason that the number of cars being bought since the spreading around of free money has occurred is because this Government signalled years ago that they were going to start giving the free money away. So a whole lot of people actually waited. They sat back and waited and they said "Well we'll just leave the decision to buy our EV. We'll leave it a year or two because if we leave it a year or two guess what? Labour's going to give us some free money that they have purloined and taken from other taxpayers."—other taxpayers who will soon be paying for this piece of environmental socialism.It's environmental socialism that has at its core a fundamental objection to capitalism. They don't like markets they don't like people making choices and they don't like suppliers selling product on the basis of features and benefits of the sort that EVs provide to the buyers of them. This is a "ute tax" and ours is an economy that means that we are different from other jurisdictions. So to simply have the ability to just do a carbon copy of what may have arguably worked in other jurisdictions and apply it to our own doesn't necessarily follow. We are a country that has a diverse and challenging geography. We are a country that is essentially dominated by our rural provincial and agricultural economy. Those are features that mean that the sorts of vehicles—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! The member's time has expired."