Twyford Phil: Road User Charges Bill — Third Reading 
Twyford Phil: Road User Charges Bill — Third Reading 
[Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
:  
I rise on behalf of Labour in this third reading to express our support for the Road User Charges Bill. We have found the select committee process in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to be constructive and we are supporting this bill because we share the Government’s view that this is a long-overdue modernisation of the legislative framework for road-user charges. They are a critically important part of our transport system and a source of revenue for our roading and other transport infrastructures. We support this bill but I want to use my time in this debate to just really reiterate some of the concerns that Labour still has about aspects of the bill that we do not believe have been adequately addressed—concerns that were raised by many submitters during the select committee process. 
 The purpose of this bill as the Minister of Transport has said is to modernise and simplify the road-user charges system; to improve compliance with and the recovery of road-user charges; and to establish a framework for electronic management of road-user charges. There has been throughout this process the assertion that there is a significant amount of evasion that goes on with road-user charges. I am not aware of any hard evidence that has been presented by the Government to substantiate the claim that there is evasion so we are being asked to take that as read. The bill gives effect to the Government’s decisions arising from the recommendations of the  
Independent Review of the New Zealand Road User Charging System.  
Students of politics listening to this debate will remember that that independent review was a result of the trucking strike if you like that was sparked by an attempt by the previous Labour Government under Annette King’s stewardship as the Minister of Transport at the time to update the system for road-user charges. So it has an interesting provenance. 
I do not think there is any difference or dissent over the need to modernise and to bring the system of road-user charges up to date with new electronic technologies. Nor is there any dissent from our side about the need for a consistent statutory framework. That is all well and good. But I want to comment briefly about two objections that remain on the table from our point of view. 
The first—I think it is in Part 2 of the bill and it is probably our most fundamental concern—is the shift from nominated weights to gross weights. As I said before we do not believe that the case has been made that that hard evidence has been put on the table by the Government to show problems with the current system of nominated weights where a truck driver or a firm will fill out the forms for their road-user charges based on the actual weights—an estimation of the actual weights—that a vehicle will be carrying. We do not believe that the case has been proved that that system is performing badly or that there is significant evasion. 
Many sectors in the industry are disgruntled. They do not feel they have been consulted properly about this change. They feel they have been kept in the dark over these changes and the impacts they will have and as we heard during the Committee stage quite a number of submitters gave testimony that the impact of the shift to gross weights to the maximum potential laden weight of the vehicle will result in substantial increases in road-user charges. As we know in our transport sector there are many many small businesses and small firms that believe that under these changes they will be adversely affected. So we think there should have been much more analysis and consultation and it is a shame that that did not happen. There were a few bodies within the industry that supported the change but by no means was that view representative of the transport fleet as a whole. The impression we were left with was that the existing system overall in terms of the use of nominated weights was felt to be working quite well. 
Another factor that was raised and that we think is worth noting is that there will be a considerable need to refit many trucks in the existing fleet and certification costs will be faced by operators in order to comply with the new system. Make no mistake about it—this change will impose very significant costs on small businesses which will be particularly vulnerable to it in our transport fleet. There will be we believe less flexibility within truck fleets than is currently provided for with the nominated weights system with smaller trucks on the road as operators seek to reduce the gross weights. And arguably that could increase roading congestion and carbon emissions. Having flexibility within the current system of nominated weights could mean that the national fleet is actually more efficient and better able to deal with changing loads. I know that one of the intents behind the change is to incentivise more efficiency so we will have vehicles carrying loads that are closer to their capacity the whole time but there are also some negative and possibly unintended consequences of that as well. 
We heard at the select committee about a case study presented by one operator that revealed an additional average cost of $18000 per vehicle per annum and a total projected cost to the firm of $137000 per year. This is obviously a very large firm but still that is a substantial cost to be borne. One of the groups that feels they will be particularly badly hit is the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association. It has about 22000 paid-up members and some 40000-odd individuals who are associated with that organisation. These are people who travel the country in motor caravans. They reported—and I know the Minister challenged some of these figures in the Committee stage—increases of up to 270 percent as a result. I have subsequently spoken to the Motor Caravan Association. It stands by its figures and feels that the very nature of motor caravans is that they are often large vehicles that are almost never loaded up to their carrying capacity. 
We have another concern that we want to just note at this stage acknowledging that we are in support of and voting for this bill for the broad reasons outlined. The second point we think is worth noting is that one of the features of this bill as the Minister said is that much of the practical detail will be covered off by regulations. We think the balance is not quite right to be passing legislation when so much of its force and intent is actually going to be delivered by regulations. A number of submitters made the point that they felt that it broke the basic democratic principle that there should not be taxation without representation. No final numbers were available for proper scrutiny before the bill proceeded this far. The actual charges are going to be dealt with by officials through the process of making regulations. One of the risks is that this will be a complicated process and open to legal challenge. 
I look forward to hearing the rest of the contributions. Thank you.