Logie Jan: Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8444. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): It is with pleasure that I rise to speak to an amendment that we have added to introduce an income tax fringe benefit tax exemption for electric vehicles and public transport. I think this is very very timely considering the talks that are happening in Paris at the moment around the—[Interruption]—this is exactly on topic Mr Chair.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Do not talk about climate change.JAN LOGIE: The point of the fringe benefit tax exemptions is to incentivise the use of electric vehicles and the use of public transport within our businesses to be able to help us transition as a country to a carbon-neutral economy which is going to be better for the health of everyone—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I hear where the member is coming from. Just concentrate on what the bill is about. You can use that as an example but concentrate on what the bill has in it about the fringe benefit tax that your amendment is about.JAN LOGIE: Sorry could I seek some clarification on that Mr Chair?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No no. Do not talk about electric cars and things like that. Your amendment is fine.JAN LOGIE: Yes which is about electric cars.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes and use that as an example but do not concentrate on it. Yes carry on—carry on.JAN LOGIE: I am sorry Mr Chair. This is possibly me being obtuse but the amendment is specifically about electric cars and public transport so I am not sure how I can make that an example because that is what it is about. So I will try to speak to this.In New Zealand 20 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions come from pollution from transport and we really need to get active and come up with some solutions to help us transition as a country. This amendment would help us do that. Currently road transport accounts for 90 percent of that transport emission and we are spending over $6 billion every year on importing petrol and diesel. These are things we could change if we incentivised businesses to use electric cars and to encourage their staff members to use public transport.This is at the heart of what this bill is about: for very very little cost to our tax system we can encourage businesses to start buying electric cars and help change our car fleet in the country as a consequence. This amendment puts the fringe benefit tax exemption into place for 7 years for electric cars to give businesses the incentive to start changing their fleets.In turn one of the great flow-on benefits of that I think will be that when those businesses turn over their cars they will be introducing electric cars into our secondhand-car market in New Zealand enabling more New Zealanders to be able to go electric to clean up our emissions and to improve the health of New Zealand. That surely is a win-win.The fringe benefit tax exemption for public transport does not have a time limit on it in this amendment because that has no time limit and we would hope that businesses would take that opportunity to encourage their staff to use public transport into perpetuity. Sadly at the moment very few of them do that so there is not likely to be a huge cost to it.I would say just bringing it back to that wider point around the absolute importance of this that as we have heard in the media recently there has been some discussion that there is very little New Zealand can do about reducing our emissions below one of the lowest targets in the world. This bill proves that there is a lot we can do because one example—two small amendments to this bill to put in a fringe benefit tax exemption for electric cars and public transport would potentially shift our culture and business practices to put us on that road to a low-carbon future.That is about protecting the well-being of our communities right now business bottom lines and the future of our country and this planet and I really hope members in this Committee will look at this amendment.