SpeechHon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. This bill is a failure in policy on behalf of the Government. There are a number ways that it is a failure. First of all there just aren't the quantity of vehicles out there to achieve its purpose. If we look at the ute market—and the ute tax" is what this bill was described as—there are no alternatives. There are no alternatives coming in the near future. The only alternative the Minister could come up with when we were considering this bill at the select committee was a prototype that had come out from America and had not actually got to production yet. That was his view of something that was going to be in the market on the ground in two years' time. It's a dream. It just will not happen. All this bill is going to do is mean that people will pay more for those vehicles and that will increase inflation in this country and continue the process that we're seeing in this country at the moment.Fundamentally it is wrong. We are in the Australian-Japanese car market. That's where our vehicles come from. This bill thinks that we're in the European market. In the Australian-Japanese market the movement is towards hybrids and better fuel uses. In the European market—fair enough—there is a bigger move towards electric vehicles but they are not conditioned for the New Zealand market. They do not do utes for example and they are not readily available here. That last speaker Terisa Ngobi spoke about an $8000 discount for her people. Well they've to spend $70000 to get the $8000. Not many of her people can actually spend $70000. Not many of any people can spend $70000 on a car just to get an $8000 discount.When we look at this bill there's another part of it where the left will keep on saying that it's a dumping ground for cars in New Zealand. Well the reality is that this bill will create an environment where people will hold on to those second-hand Japanese imports. They will hold on to those older cars because they can't afford to buy a new one. It will actually achieve the opposite. What they are actually doing here is constraining New Zealanders to hold on to an older fleet. What we should be doing is taking advantage of the new technology around the world to get a better fleet and that is the approach that would be much more sensible and would achieve our goals.Another thing they say is that roads are the problem and you hear that public transport is the answer. That is complete and utter rubbish. Most of New Zealand is based on a roading network. All of productive New Zealand effectively is based on a roading network and without options in the electric vehicle fleet for that market it makes it very difficult for people to be able to achieve their economic purposes. Also electric cars over time will have to go on roads and you need to invest in your roading network to enable that to happen.What has happened here is there's actually been a failure by the Government to understand what they're doing. It's classic leftism policy. They make an idea up and they say it's going to happen but it actually hurts the very people they say they try to represent. The people on the lowest incomes won't be able to take advantage of this. The people that are academics or politicians who sit in this room will be able to take advantage of this subsidy and it's just another wealth transfer to the rich from the poor that you see under a Labour Government.Hon Members: Ha ha!Hon DAVID BENNETT: They may laugh but it's a reality—look at the housing market example as well. What would be a better approach? That is something we need to look at. Let's actually invest in some renewable electricity for New Zealand. Under this Government renewable electricity generation has decreased as a percentage of New Zealand production. If we really want to do something about electric vehicles (EVs) let's make sure they run on renewable electricity and not coal coming in from Indonesia. If we really want to do something about EVs let's invest in an EV network around New Zealand so you can actually power up these vehicles when they come in. If you really want to do something in this area why don't we look at alternative fuels where you can use a mixture of fuel? That's what our fuel companies want to be able to do. If you really want to do something about this you would actually look at using hybrids and other vehicles in the Japanese and Australian market that are actually more fuel efficient more energy efficient and more environmentally friendly but the opposite is happening in this case.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Tangi Utikere—five minutes."