O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Labour): Mr Speaker thank you very much. I'm very pleased to take a call on this piece of legislation. It is another classic backtrack—not back-on-track; backtrack—legislation. [Interruption] Yeah backtrack—that's it exactly. At a time when—as my colleague has just said—we've just concluded internationally at COP a commitment to move forward on lower-emitting technologies and efforts across the globe to try and reduce the effects of climate change. It is a little ironic that we pass a piece of legislation that's going to reverse the direction of travel—pardon the pun.I was certainly in the firing line when this was introduced and I'm very aware of the limited number of options around commercial vehicles across the country. Although in a discussion and further investigation at the time it was introduced one little story the member might be interested in: the Ford Ranger which was a very popular selling—still is popular selling—vehicle basically runs a Euro5 motor. If Ford had chosen to be selling the Euro6 motor in New Zealand the $8000 or thereabouts tax that was being charged and had been charged would have been significantly lower because of the emissions profile of that vehicle. The point being that there is technology around the world to reduce the emissions and reduce the impulse that the previous legislation brought upon many people who were purchasing or needed to purchase utes and commercial vehicles like that. This was an incentive to move us in the right direction and indeed the uptake of electric vehicles and hybrids in this country is a measure of the success of this piece of legislation—that's now been backtracked.Can I ask one question? If it was that bad I ask every single National Party and ACT member of Parliament that took up the subsidy as they call it and claimed it for the electric vehicles they purchased to pay it back. Pay the money back. Pay the money back—Tom Rutherford: Pay the taxpayer back for all the money you wasted over the last six years.Grant McCallum: Pay the money back to the farmers.Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: Pay the money back if you think that it was a bad scheme. Mr Speaker there are a few calls over there—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Look interjections: short sharp and preferably witty. You're failing on all counts. Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: I'll just talk about agriculture for example and farmers. Yes it was an impost on those who had to buy.Grant McCallum: Yes here we go!Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: I'm acknowledging that. But there's a lot of them also. In fact we help a farmer buy an electric vehicle as well a car. So they paid somewhere; they picked it up somewhere else.Can I just say the hundreds of millions of dollars that the taxpayers have paid across to the agricultural sector—a good investment but it is a subsidy by some people's measure. We call it good investment—we did when we were in Government. Good investment. A billion dollars in one Budget alone for the rural sectors. Eight hundred million dollars from taxpayers to help eliminate Mycoplasma bovis which if it had been let run would have imposed huge additional costs on farmers. We saw the value in that investment just as the legislation for the Clean Car Discount we saw as a good investment in the future decarbonisation of our economy.My colleague Megan Woods pointed out that if we don't move to reduce our carbon emissions we do have a legal obligation in 2030 that will require the writing out of cheques. We thought that early investment in this area encouraging more electric vehicles into the market is a smart way forward. Indeed people like myself who were somewhat cynical about the effectiveness of an electric vehicle but was forced to have one by the Prime Minister—can I say that they are really really smart vehicles. If you live in a city everyone should have an electric vehicle. Everyone.Tom Rutherford: What about the rural areas?Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: Yeah of course there's a difference in rural areas. We are now starting to see—be it Rivian be it Ford—a Ranger that is a hybrid vehicle coming on to the market next year. We're starting to see movement in that direction. We had the vision. This Government is a backtrack Government with a backtrack piece of legislation.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Mike Butterick.Cameron Brewer: No. Cameron Brewer.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Cameron Brewer.