Utikere TangiTANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia orana. Thank you Madam Speaker. Well the House has been sitting since the late hours of last night all through today to deal with this one piece of legislation.Andy Foster: Whose fault was that?TANGI UTIKERE: Well whose fault it was Mr Foster was this Government's who clearly want to take this country backwards in terms of meeting our emissions targets and being ambitious because there is absolutely no ambition in relation to that.This is a piece of legislation that has been rammed through this Parliament through all stages—first reading second reading committee and now third—without any opportunity for any select committee scrutiny or engagement. But the Minister as this bill has been making its way through the Parliament in the last 24 hours has made very clear that consultation under his watch will take place but it will only take place with the importers that this bill will affect. Those are the only people that he is interested in. He's been very clear about setting regulations. He will only consult with importers. He will not consult with any environmental NGOs. He will not consult with anyone else that might want to have a view on this. And this is just emblematic of the approach that this Government seems to take in terms of making decisions that will have a real impact on the ground but they don't care about that. They are simply focused on being in it for those that will support them.This is very very disappointing. Parliament has spent a number of hours reflecting on the fact that an officer of this Parliament the Parliamentary Commissioner of Environment took the time bevvied into this process by sending an open letter to the Minister of Transport expressing concerns and opportunities around the fact that this was a bill that would have huge implications on the environment. Yet there was not an opportunity for an officer of Parliament to directly feed into that and has had to effectively issue an open letter to make his views known. And you know what? When those views were put to the Minister time and time and time again he simply said Well it's got nothing to do with that actually because it's got to wait for the review process." I think that is absolutely disgraceful on the part of Simeon Brown that that is the response that he has.There is a requirement for the Minister to consult whenever he is going to issue regulations and he's made it very clear around who he is going to consult with. You know members on this side of the House have attempted to be very conciliatory in a number of the amendments that we've put forward in this process. Now the Government has had in many instances a lot of time to actually have a look at those amendment papers because they were tabled I think on the night or within the 24 hours of the Budget so at least three weeks to pursue or peruse through those. Now one that I thought was actually very sensible and would have provided an opportunity for the Minister to have a look at was the creation of the sinking lid to ensure that the risk for actually an increase in those targets to take place would be mitigated because they wouldn't be possible. But the Minister did not give any consideration to that and it is rather unfortunate that that is in fact the case.There is no ambition here in this legislation. What we have currently is the state of play a legislated specified list of targets that run us through the next three-year period and then we revert into regulations as an opportunity. What is wrong with that—what is wrong with that? The Minister has failed to address that.This clean car standard is a piece of legislation that was introduced as a way of workability in tandem with the clean car rebate or the discount. Now this Government slated that within their first hundred days. They basically chopped out households from having an opportunity to access a no to low emission vehicle opportunity by saying "No no we've hit the target." And as a result of that we have seen the sales of those vehicles actually plummet. And this will do nothing to support the reversal of that as well. This was something that was phased in from December 2022 and its focus was primarily around driving down the CO2 emissions for light vehicles to target those who use light vehicles everyday households others that have it in the fleet as well let alone the environmental factors that are at play.We have heard time and time again in this House about the fact that we have to drive down our transportation sector emissions if we are going to make any real progress to delivering on the outcomes that we have signed up to as an international player. It's interesting when we look at the numbers—there are 1000 or thereabouts vehicle importers that import 300000 vehicles each year into this country. Now what is interesting is that this is going to be effectively a car tax that is thrown on to each vehicle. It's the only logical way that the Government will be able to administer this by saying "Actually we're not going to set an across-the-board fee X amount of money that's required spread that over the 1000 and everyone pays the same amount." There are equity issues with that. What they are going to do is they're going to say every single vehicle that is sold in New Zealand is going to have an admin fee tacked on and something else to meet the costs of this. So it is a car tax. It is something that they are putting on to households and purchases as well.Now this is clearly a Government that is looking to authorise and permit dirtier cars on our roads dirtier cars in our communities less efficient cars out and about. And that would be vehicles that have higher operating costs over the life of the vehicle as well and they are going to continue to penalise those for whom it is just a little bit more difficult to make the decision to actually migrate over to a no to low emitting vehicle. And that is rather unfortunate.It is important that we do have a sense of ambition. This is something that is lacking from this Government that they've taken urgency to ram through this piece of legislation. Simon Court: Coming from your side.TANGI UTIKERE: Oh Mr Court that's got him going. You know he's sitting there silently for quite some time and now whenever we tinker with the suggestion of no ambition from him and his party as a member of this Government that's what riles him up a little bit.But there is no ambition from this Government to seek to drive down the emissions in this country. If we look at what the levels are contained here in the actual piece of legislation there was a real opportunity for Minister Simeon Brown to come to the House to say to the Parliament and to those who are listening "You know what? Actually I give a commitment that the targets that I set as Minister of Transport will not be higher than the targets that exist here today." And he refused to do that. That was an opportunity to signal to everyone in this House and out there in the community that we are serious as a Government about driving down our emissions in the profile. He refused to do that and I think that is just absolutely an unfortunate opportunity that has gone by.An aspect of this bill is to push those costs to the industry via the cost recovery. It's something that Minister Brown has talked about ad infinitum—that this is about user pays it's about cost recovery. That will find its way on to the consumer. The money that is currently being paid by the public for an element of public good is going to make its way on to the consumer. And we've had this conversation as part of the committee of the whole House about whether it was appropriate to amend as the principal Act the Land Transport Act or whether there had been some advice sought or some advice that may have been given. Actually this sat more squarely within the consumer rights consumer guarantee space; or maybe it sat in the energy efficiency climate change space. We didn't actually hear from—well no we did hear from him to be fair. And he said "No no this is because this is what the previous Government did." Since when did previous Governments buy in future and current Governments—since when did previous Governments buy in future and current Governments? Because if that was the case the Government wouldn't be on its mission and heading in the direction that it seems to be heading in as well. So that is absolute and utter nonsense—absolute and utter nonsense. The Minister is simply running a ruler through all of these specific targets that will kick in and that is really unfortunate.You know the focus of the Land Transport Act is around a rapid reduction in emissions in terms of Part 5. This piece of legislation that's been rammed through the House under urgency at the moment over the last few hours or many hours is doing nothing to do exactly that. It is doing nothing to actually drive down our emissions profile as a country. And what that means is there will be significant implications for households and for us as a nation as we fail under this Government to take climate change seriously and we fail to meet the targets that have been outlined and the responsibilities that have also been outlined and underpin the emissions reduction plans 2 and 3. It is unfortunate.So on this side of the House we will continue to oppose this ridiculous dire piece of legislation that seeks to do nothing but to put a further barrier on those that want to make a difference. I oppose this bill."