O'Connor Damien: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — In Committee 
O'Connor Damien: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 I welcome the chance to follow the Minister of Transport Steven Joyce because I wish to clarify a couple of points he made in his speech. Before New Zealanders who listened to that speech rush off to buy hearing aids because the Minister pointed out the danger of electric cars and the fact that they are silent I tell them that we have to be realistic. There are going to be only 300 electric cars as estimated by the Minister himself. It is important that New Zealanders do not get alarmed at the possibility of those quiet cars zooming around everywhere. 
The Road User Charges Amendment Bill is hardly huge legislation and one of the questions I ask of the Committee is how come it is going through today. I have a suspicion it is because John Key is somewhere else in the world because if this bill is in any way related to climate change then I have to repeat the words of the Prime Minister who said: “This is a complete and utter hoax if I may say so. The impact of the Kyoto Protocol even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it—is that we will see billions and billions of dollars poured into fixing … a problem.” We can be sure this legislation does not involve billions of dollars if indeed the Prime Minister has come around to the thinking of the Minister of Transport. 
The Minister has been careful to point out in the explanatory note of the bill that this does not set a precedent. That is a bit sad. One would hope that by passing legislation that is focused on climate change the general objectives are to encourage the uptake of electric vehicles even if there will be only 300 and we in the Opposition applaud that initiative. But it is hardly even the gem of a good idea. It is more like the atom of a good idea because it will not have that much impact. None the less as long as we are moving forward in the right direction and if this legislation was to set a precedent then we could be assured that the Chamber was using its time properly. 
Even though the Minister says that this legislation does not set a precedent I think we have to ask a few questions around precedents or indeed the objective. Does this mean that the National Government accepts that climate change is a reality? Is this the first spark the first glimmer of hope that we will see legislation going through Chamber that will bring New Zealand into the new world and hopefully put us in a position where we can say we are “100% Pure New Zealand”? That is what we are through our tourism marketing but the reality is that as we know we are not quite there in terms of carbon initiatives. Electric vehicles will move us down that path so I applaud the legislation for what it does but surely we could accept the small precedent that might be stated in the bill—but no it is not—that we are moving towards a path of low-emission vehicles across the country. If that was to be the case then the question why we did not remove the road-user charges for small diesel vehicles to encourage the uptake of them rather than the petrol-powered vehicles that are still the predominant vehicles on our roads must arise. 
If we are trying to set a precedent as we should be doing with any legislation and we are encouraging the uptake of low-emission vehicles why does this legislation not include light diesel vehicles? There are 299 electric vehicles—not 300 because the Minister for the Environment Nick Smith who no doubt has stated his self-interest has one of them—somewhere in the country that will be affected and will benefit from this legislation and I would say that will have a very very small impact on the climate. We need to do something substantive. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: It’s huge! 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Mr Henare needs to change his V8 for an electric vehicle. I am sure that at some stage just as the Prime Minister has accepted that climate change is a reality that member may trade in his V8.