O'Rourke Denis: Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:13044. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): We are told that there is a need to correct some minor anomalies—minor anomalies—with the new Road User Charges Act 2012 that affect a small number of vehicles and their owners by way of this omnibus bill the Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill. Perhaps it should be called the “Land Transport Charges Stuff-ups Correction Bill” because that is actually what it is. It is really necessary too because of all the stuff-ups that have been made by this Government on this matter over recent times especially with the 2012 Act. I have been contacted by a number of people over this legislation—irate people people who are frustrated at Government ineptitude over these things and people who have had to pay much more than they should have—and they will of course now face huge fuel tax increases as well from this grasping Government. So the Government cannot be proud of this bill. This bill is nothing more than a stuff-ups correction bill.Having said that New Zealand First has no objection to the changes to be made by the bill most of which are of only a technical nature. Firstly there is to be a new regulation-making power to exempt vehicles that are not required to be registered from road-user charges. Under the Act unregistered vehicles are subject to road-user charges unless they belong to a class of vehicle that is defined as being exempt. It is not possible to issue road-user charge distance licences for these unregistered vehicles because those licences are issued against a vehicle’s registration number—it is not rocket science. Operators of unregistered road-user charge vehicles cannot therefore be compliant with the Act when travelling on roads. The amount of road-user charge revenue that would be collected for these vehicles is low so the bill would amend the Act to enable regulations to be made exempting vehicles that are not required to be registered from road-user charges. That is sensible and acceptable but I am amazed that the current law has been allowed to subsist until now in that state.Secondly there is to be a new annual charge in lieu of road-user charges for some vehicles that are exempt from road-user charges. These are vehicles that make very littleuse of roads and make a sufficient contribution to the costs they impose on the road network through the standard vehicle licence of about $43. However some vehicles exempt from road-user charges are likely to impose higher costs on the road network than are covered by this. A good example is tractors—presumably driven by National boy racers—operated at over 40 kilometres an hour on the road. The proposal is that these would incur an additional annual charge by amending the principal Act to enable an annual charge in lieu of road-user charges to be collected through the registration system. That is of course just fair and appropriate but it has been a long time coming. Again why was it not done years ago?Thirdly there will be new offences to support enforcement of conditions on exemptions under section 40 of the Act. Owners of light vehicles that are operated almost exclusively off road can apply for an exemption from road-user charges under section 40 but these are subject to conditions prescribed by regulations. For example an exempt light vehicle can be operated no further than 10 kilometres from the nearest boundary of the property where the vehicle is normally kept. Clearly there has been a glaring stuff-up here in that there are no offence provisions for breach of these incredibly important conditions. The bill will add suitable offence provisions commensurate with penalties for similar offences under the Act. It is obviously necessary. It is another stuff-up. It has to be corrected.The remaining amendments are only minor in nature and are also unobjectionable so New Zealand First will vote for the bill to go to the appropriate select committee.