Hipkins Chris: Road User Charges Bill — First Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Road User Charges Bill — First Reading 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I will move that all the words in the referral motion after “May 2011” be deleted. The reason I will do that is that we have just heard a very eloquent contribution from Tau Henare on the National side talking about the importance of all the members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee being present for the very important deliberations on the Road User Charges Bill. I would hate to think that any member of that committee missed out because of the outrageous referral motion that this Government will move on this bill. 
That motion gives the committee the power to meet even when the House is sitting and even when it goes into urgency in order to rush through the foreshore and seabed legislation which we know is coming up very shortly—even while the House is sitting under urgency to rush through the outrageous Marine and Coastal Areas (Takutai Moana) Bill which the Government wants to do before the Maori Party completely implodes. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member seems to be diverging way off this particular bill in terms of references to other bills. I just ask that you bring him back to the focus of the bill. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I thank the member. This is a first reading speech so there is a little flexibility here. But I hear what the member says and I am listening to what is being said. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Thank you very much Mr Deputy Speaker. I am happy to speak for a little longer on the reasons why I do not think this bill deserves to have a truncated select committee process that prevents the members of the committee from fully participating in the deliberations on it because they may have to come into the House to talk about the foreshore and seabed legislation which is no doubt coming up under urgency. I am not surprised that the Maori Party is a little sensitive about that particular matter. 
I will pick up on some of the contributions that have been made by other members of the House on this bill and I will raise some of the issues that I will be asking about in the select committee process because having read through the bill I have a number of questions. I am particularly interested in the usual maximum allowable weight issue and what that means for vehicles that are regularly loaded to less than their maximum capacity. For example—and this is something that the Minister of Agriculture will take an active interest in—milk tankers are regularly loaded at well below their maximum allowable weight. Does this mean that milk tankers will be charged at their maximum allowable weight even if they are half empty? That potentially will create some issues. I imagine that the people who drive milk tankers will not be particularly happy with the Minister of Agriculture about that and I would like to see the select committee explore that issue a little further. I think the select committee should explore it further. 
One of the other issues with regard to the maximum allowable weight issue is that vehicles are often empty when they are returning to the depot so what will happen with regard to those vehicles? 
The Labour Party supports the measures in this bill that tighten up on road-user charge avoidance. I think we can all be pleased that the Government is taking some action on that. However I think we could go a bit further in terms of the electronic monitoring of road-user charges. I am not sure whether this bill fully provides for the new technology that could be available to monitor those issues. For example the feedback that I have received from the trucking companies in my own electorate is that they find that the hub meters can be quite unreliable. Actually there is global positioning system (GPS) technology now that is pinpoint accurate—down to the very metre—which can record all of a vehicle’s movements. An electronic system may be much harder to fool in order to avoid paying the road-user charges so it could be much fairer and provide the trucking companies and the operators of trucks with a much more flexible reasonable and easy to manage system. An electronic system can operate on a cellphone SIM card or GPS-type system. That can be instant much much more accurate than hub meters and potentially much fairer. That is another issue that I would like to see the select committee explore a little further and I will be asking some further questions about that. 
I am also concerned about the lack of differentiation in this bill and in the existing regime between different types of small diesel vehicles. For example under this bill a small Volkswagen Golf will be charged at roughly the same rate as Tau Henare’s Mitsubishi Challenger. He is paying attention now; I have woken him up again. His Mitsubishi Challenger will attract roughly the same road-user charges as a Volkswagen Golf. A Volkswagen Golf is much smaller and much lighter on the road so the rationale for charging the same road-user charges for a Mitsubishi Pajero or Challenger as for a Volkswagen Golf is I think pretty weak. If we are moving towards more fuel-efficient vehicles smaller vehicles and potentially the greater use of diesel vehicles then we need to think quite seriously about whether there should be a greater differentiation in the charging regime for smaller diesel vehicles. That is something that should be considered. 
I read through some comments from New Zealand Bus on this particular proposal. It argued that public transport should be subject to a different charging regime and I think that should possibly be considered or at least we should canvass the arguments in favour or against having a differentiated charging regime for buses and other forms of public transport that operate on the roads and use diesel. Unfortunately this Government seems to have a natural predisposition against encouraging the use of public transport and against supporting public transport. We have seen that through Steven Joyce’s absolute obsession with building more and more motorways while at the same time trying to choke off various public transport options around the country. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I bet the Green candidate for Botany wished there had been a motorway out east. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: What was that? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I bet the Green candidate wished there had been a motorway out east. He missed his nomination. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: If we are talking about motorways in Auckland I would defer to Melissa Lee’s superior knowledge of the motorways in Auckland. After all when they built that extra motorway through—what was it Harbourview—whatever it was— 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Waterview. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: When they built that extra motorway through Waterview she said all the criminals would travel from South Auckland to west Auckland without having to pass through Mt Albert and that would be absolutely fantastic. The voters of Mt Albert embraced that so much that they delivered to her an even lower result than the previous National candidate managed to obtain at the last general election. But that comment coming as it did from Maurice Williamson highlights National’s absolute obsession with having more and more motorways rather than considering alternative forms of transport. That is absolutely relevant to this discussion because when we are talking about the charging rate for diesel road-user charges one of the issues that could be considered is a differentiated charging rate for public transport. 
But the big question I have here is whether this is the step change that we have been waiting for from the Government. The Government members are just back from the Christmas holiday. They have had a nice long holiday. John Key has been off to Hawaii a couple of times to lie on the beach. Is this what he managed to come up with in that period of time? Will changing the road-user charges regime be the step change that will catch us up with Australia? Is this the step change that will give jobs to the thousands of people who have lost their jobs since National came into Government? Will this will give them jobs? I do not think this will do very much for them at all. This is not a step change. This is routine administrative legislation which is one of the reasons why we support its referral to the select committee although we would like to give the select committee the opportunity to consider it properly. We are supporting its referral through to the select committee but where is the step change? It is still not here. It is certainly not in this legislation. 
Finally I will comment briefly again on the select committee process. Given the lack of consultation around the bill that we have in front of us it is very important that the select committee is given adequate opportunity to do its job thoroughly and that the members of the select committee can focus on this bill and give it the attention it deserves. I do not think that will happen. I do not think that the referral motion that the Government is to move—completely unnecessarily—to rush this bill through the select committee by giving it the ability to meet even when Parliament is sitting will result in this bill getting the scrutiny that it deserves. It will force members to step out of the select committee to participate in other parliamentary processes such as debates in this House or it will force members not to participate in debates in the House in order to participate in the select committee process. A good chairperson of a select committee should not need the type of referral motion that the Government is to move. It should be possible for the select committee to meet the deadline that is to be set of May 2011 without having to rush through the process and without having to meet while Parliament is sitting. 
To conclude there are some meaty issues here for the select committee to get into. Maybe they are not as much meaty as they are technical but they are interesting. But overall the bill is not the step change that we are waiting for from the National Government. I would like to see a really concrete plan to get the economy moving. I do not think that this is anywhere near to being close to that plan. Thank you.