van de Molen TimTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Madam Chair—fantastic choice. Now look I'd just like to make a contribution to this bill as well. It's interesting to note the lack of interest from the Government's side of the Chamber in actually getting up and taking a call on this which I think is representative of their lack of interest in general for the wider issue of transportation within Auckland. That is clearly demonstrated by the last member from the Government who actually did take a call who was able to dredge up one poll that showed support and clung to that poll for five minutes' worth of rhetoric. Well actually there were four polls in May that all opposed this bill being implemented. They said there was no need for a regional fuel tax in Auckland. Four different polls conducted throughout the month of May all came up with the same conclusion. And the Government is not interested in taking a call today. They're clearly not interested in listening to the public of Auckland either.Really this is about raising funds to cover the shortfall that the Auckland Council hasn't been able to stump up. Mayor Phil Goff committed to reducing expenditure to provide extra capital available for investment in infrastructure and that has fallen short.Simeon Brown: And what's he done?TIM VAN DE MOLEN: He hasn't achieved it all Mr Brown as well you'd be aware as an Auckland MP. This is a disappointing outcome for Aucklanders in general. And now the Government's trying to scramble and cover for Mr Goff's lack of savings by implementing this regional fuel tax.They've also gone and raided funds—a significant level: $5 billion of funding—from the roads of national significance projects outlined by the previous Government; projects that were going to enhance safety across New Zealand. And there were a number of petitions presented in the House just today actually some of those covering areas around the Waikato in my electorate and those petitions were advocated for on behalf of all New Zealanders strongly by my colleague sitting beside me Tim Macindoe MP for Hamilton West and myself. We were both very keen to see these roads continue in particular and yet we haven't seen that.And on top of that actually what we've seen now is a significant change. We've heard just recently actually the Government Policy Statement (GPS) put out—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'll just remind the member we are debating Part 1 of this bill not the GPS.TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Yes thank you Madam Deputy Chair. And what we're seeing is actually that their focus on safety which they're talking about in Auckland being a key priority—actually the New Zealand Transport Agency put out a list of 10 top high-risk rural intersections around the country six of those were in the Waikato. Five of them were going to be bypassed by the expressway projects and that's now not happening. So I call them out on their claim that safety is their key priority when clearly their actions are demonstrating otherwise. This is another example of the Government trying to talk their way out of something they've acted their way into. And frankly New Zealanders won't buy it.Looking now to the regional fuel tax what we're seeing here is actually there's a number of issues with this. And I want to come back to some of the points that were touched on earlier around electric vehicles. We've seen a significant increase in the number of electric vehicles being registered in New Zealand. This graph shows exponential growth in terms of vehicles registered throughout New Zealand. We're seeing a massive number now. There were at 31 May this year 3875 electric vehicles registered. Now when you consider that significant increase—and coincidentally that's more than are registered in Australia by a country mile—this significant increase in the uptake of electric vehicles that don't require the usage of fuel is actually going to see a reduction in the revenue gained from a regional fuel tax. And we haven't seen that taken into account in the figures at all. So I'd be interested to hear from the Minister in the chair what his perspective is on the potential reduction in revenue obtained as a result of the significant increase in electric vehicle uptakes as promoted under the last Government.Also what we're seeing is these electric vehicles are typically owned by New Zealanders who have a little bit more spare cash. They're able to afford to take up this new technology. That means that lower-income New Zealanders are going to be the ones stuck capturing—or I guess incurring—the bulk of the cost around this regional fuel tax. And what we've heard already from one assessment is that could be up to three times more cost incurred by low-income families because they might be driving less efficient vehicles than by other Aucklanders who are able to have more efficient vehicles or indeed those who have electric vehicles and pay nothing at all—so a significant discrepancy here.