Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Climate change is the single biggest issue facing us right now as a country as a people and as a planet and the reality is that we need to work together and cooperate on a level we never have before in order to address this challenge. It's going to affect farmers it's going to affect tradies and it's going to affect our infrastructure if we don't take action now. If I told you that there was a way we could take action on climate change that not only didn't cost us money but it saved us money and it made a more productive and efficient transport system and a more productive and efficient way of living and doing business in New Zealand I would think that Government parties would support that because here's an opportunity to do something that's not just good for the climate but it actually in the short term saves us money and in transport it's precisely that. Everything we can and need to do for a more sustainable transport system that's going to be better for the climate saves New Zealanders money and it creates a more productive and efficient transport system and better cities and yet the Government is doing the opposite in almost every area of transport of what is good for the climate and good for New Zealand. That's unfortunate and this bill—this is the second reading of this bill—is a proposal that in the short term really goes in the opposite direction of what we need to do in terms of supporting more electric and low-emissions vehicles into New Zealand. Low-emissions and electric vehicles are really a huge opportunity for New Zealand because so much of our electricity is renewable already. We're spending so much money on imported fossil fuels to run our vehicles and we have such a vehicle-intensive transport system—a private vehicle - intensive transport system. We're spending all this money on vehicles plus the fuel to run them and the fuel to run them is mostly generating energy-related carbon emissions which is bad for the climate. So here's this win-win opportunity but unfortunately what the Government is doing is simply taking away any incentive to switch to electric vehicles right at the time when we most need Government support and incentives in order to get that transition. The reason the bill does this—and we heard it through the submissions. The other downside to this whole process has been that it's been incredibly short. It's been rushed. The select committee was given only nine days to announce submissions on the bill to hear submissions and to report back. The normal Parliament process is six months. Even four weeks would have allowed a better process but we only got nine days and in the very short time that the public had to submit on the bill we got over 500 submissions. Now I think we had like 36 hours for submissions. We got over 500 submissions and in the departmental report from the Ministry of Transport it says that the main focus of submissions was advocating for battery electric vehicles being charged a lower road-user charge rate than what is proposed by the Government and that plug-in hybrids should be charged a lower rate. All of these submissions the majority of these submissions—if you look on page 14 of the departmental report it says the majority of these submissions agree that [electric vehicles] should contribute towards the cost of the transport system". However the appropriate road-user charge rate for battery electric and plug-in hybrids "should reflect their important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change concerns." Now what we're interested in here more than anything else is outcomes: what will the outcome of the policy be? When you combine the outcome of this policy with the outcome of removing the Clean Car Discount—which was having a transformational impact on the vehicles coming into the country—then the reality is we're going to import fewer electric vehicles in the next few years. That means that every extra higher-emissions fossil-fuelled vehicle that we get in the country locks in 20 years of emissions and not just 20 years of emissions but 20 more years of New Zealanders paying for overseas fossil fuels rather than using cheaper cleaner renewable vehicles using electricity generated right here in New Zealand which is good for our economy and good for consumers. So the reality is that the majority of the submissions were opposed to the proposal even though they support road-user charges being applied to battery electric and plug-in hybrids. They support it and there was a particularly strong submission from an industry group. We had basically the whole industry: the Automobile Association the Motor Trade Association the motor vehicle importers' association the vehicle importers—that's the second-hand vehicle and the new vehicle industry groups—Drive Electric and others. They had a big joint submission that said "We believe that the current planned [road-user charge] rates that will apply from 1 April [this year] on [battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids] creates a significant distortion between [road-user charges] and [fuel excise duty]. Reducing these RUC rates [was] requested"—so the rates in this bill were requested and the Green Party supported their proposal that we reduce our battery electric rate to $60 and for plug-in hybrids we advocated for $38. Now as it happened during this rushed process if you read the select committee report you would think that the Government was not going to amend the bill as introduced and yet attached to the bill it is amended and it is amended to have a lower rate for plug-in hybrid vehicles which is great. So look if one thing can be taken away from this because the Government embraced this change of the lower rate of $38 rather than $52 which it was going to be—Tom Rutherford: $53. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: $53. Sorry it's $53. So here in clause 15(2) the amendment was made even though the Government members of the committee said that they weren't supporting that change. They did vote unanimously to support it and now the Minister of Transport is saying "Hey actually I did want that. I did want the committee to consider options." So please let that be a lesson to Government members of the select committee that they have a really important role to play in improving the legislation from the executive. You all—Mr Speaker I'm not referring to you but you all in the Government—didn't come here to rubber-stamp what the executive is doing. You're hearing from the public you're hearing from industry and you can make an informed call if that could help improve the executive's lawmaking which happened in this case. So I really encourage members to take seriously the role of select committees in improving the legislation handed down by Ministers. You're not here at the beck and call of Ministers; you're here to hear from the public and make that law better and in this case it has happened. The Greens supported the amendment at the select committee and all kudos to my Labour colleagues who ensured that that amendment was in the version of the bill that was voted on by the select committee. So here we have a reduced rate now for plug-in hybrids which is good but the Greens still cannot support the bill because we don't have the reduced rate for the battery electric vehicles. You know everyone can talk about fairness until we're blue in the face but the reality is—this is very clear from the submitters—that people who own electric vehicles are going to be paying almost twice as much as a comparable petrol car. To me that's not fair and that's what the majority of the submitters said. A reduced rate for battery electric vehicles would actually be fairer and not only that. It does help but like the—Grant McCallum: You've got to fix the roads somehow. Chlöe Swarbrick: Take the freight off. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: There are ways to ensure—Tom Rutherford: And put it where? Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —that they're—Chlöe Swarbrick: Put it on trains. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Sorry I'm getting a little bit derailed here by the debate next to me which is that—Tom Rutherford: "Derailed"—well done. I see that—I see that. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Members opposite should consider whether or not we have a transport system that is user-pays because at the moment it's not and this was also clear. I'd call the attention of the Government members to this lovely flow chart on page 2 of the departmental report which makes it very clear that road-user charges and fuel excise duty—petrol tax—do not pay for the total cost of the roads. There's both massive taxpayer money going into highways and there's ratepayer money going into local roads and so it's not a user-pays system firstly. Secondly the more important thing is: are we going to get the transition to the electric vehicles that we desperately need because every year that we don't it's going to cost New Zealand more. It costs New Zealand at every stage. All of our dairy exports do not cover the cost of our vehicle and our fuel imports annually. Everything we can do to reduce that fuel bill now means more money in the pockets of New Zealanders more money in New Zealand and at that same time it's really essential and necessary for the climate. What we need to do here—everyone—is think past the debate of the last century and the last few decades and start thinking about the present and the future: how we can actually get outcomes-focused policy that's going to be effective. If there's one thing that members opposite cannot deny it's that the Clean Car Discount got outcomes for New Zealand and all this rhetoric and slang about tradies and farmers—it's rubbish. The vast majority of the fees were paid by high-income people paid by businesses and paid by people in urban areas. So if farmers need the urban places to pull their weight that's what the Clean Car Discount did."