Kedgley Sue: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is pleased to join in the consensus in the House in supporting the Road User Charges Amendment Bill which will waive road-user charges for electric cars for 4 years. Why would anyone not support electric cars? After all they will make our fleet more efficient they do not have emissions they will reduce our dependence on oil and they will be a tiny step towards New Zealand becoming energy independent and so forth. Of course we support electric cars but we do have as others have mentioned some real questions about the underlying strategy behind the rather modest bill. 
Others have asked why the bill has been rushed through Parliament and wondered what the great rush is. I would like to speculate. There are two reasons for it. The first one and the previous speaker hinted at it is that National members can go around as David Bennett has done claiming that National is now somehow taking leadership in clean green transport. He can rush around saying “Look what we’re doing; we are giving incentives for using the electric car.” It is a great spin. 
The second reason is that it justifies in National members’ minds business as usual when it comes to transport which means building more and more roads for more and more cars. It does not matter because in this wonderful vision that David Bennett spoke about electric cars will be all over New Zealand. So everything will be fine! The presence of the cars will justify what National has just done. National has slashed $420 million out of the fund for alternative public transport and it is pouring all that money into building new roads. This bill is like a fig leaf; somehow the Government can justify this incredibly short-sighted policy because we will have electric cars. It also enables David Bennett and the previous speaker Tau Henare to go on and on about it. Tau Henare said: “Look at it. We are embracing the future. We are embracing new technology.” That is great stuff! 
There is one slight flaw: it is estimated that there will be only 30 electric cars by 2010 that within about 3 years there will be about 300 electric cars and maybe by 2020 there will be 30000 electric cars on the road. That hardly is a panacea. The problem is that electric cars are expensive. They cost two to three times as much as an ordinary car. How will New Zealanders fork out $40000 to $80000 for an electric car? Yes electric cars are great; we strongly support them. But let us not use them to provide a justification a panacea for increasing our focus on roads and for running down public transport like rail as previous speakers have mentioned. 
The bill also deals with the ability to alter the rates of road-user charges particularly referring to trucks. Trucks do enormous damage on our roads. A 40-tonne truck can easily cause as much damage to a typical road as 60000 one-tonne cars. As a result of this overweight trucks chronically underpay their fair share of road-user fees for the repair of roads and bridges. By damaging roads large trucks further degrade highway safety. My estimate related to damage done by a 40-tonne truck. Imagine how much damage will be done by 53-tonne trucks which National is about to unleash on our roads. These juggernauts are 72 feet long which is 6½ feet longer. We can be quite certain they will destroy our roads. If 40-tonne trucks can cause as much damage as 60000 cars God knows what damage will be done by 53-tonne trucks! I can be absolutely certain that trucks will not pay their fair share of road-user charges which are used to repair the damage they will do on our roads. 
One thing that road-user charges do not take into account is the cost of all the accidents that these juggernaut trucks cause on our roads. Trucks make up only 4 percent of our vehicle fleet yet cause 18 percent of the road toll. Despite knowing this we will allow trucks that are much bigger and considerably longer on our roads. We know that that will inevitably cause more accidents on our roads. How do we know that? Am I just scaremongering? No because the truth is that the longer the truck—6½ feet longer at 72 feet long—the longer it will take for people to pass it. It will be more difficult for these juggernaut trucks to go round the corners of our windy hilly roads in New Zealand without passing over the centre line as they do on many many State highways in New Zealand. Huge 53-tonne trucks will take longer to brake. If one has the misfortune to be involved in an accident with a 53-tonne truck one will come off even worse than if one was involved in an accident with a 40-tonne truck. 
New Zealanders are completely opposed to the juggernaut trucks. The previous speaker from Labour Sue Moroney blamed National for them but it must be said that Labour initiated the pilot study that is now being used as an excuse to allow these juggernaut trucks on our roads and to give them the green light. The stupidity of this proposal lies in the fact that our roads are far too narrow far too windy and far too hilly. They are just completely ill-suited for huge juggernaut trucks; that is why so many New Zealanders are alarmed. They are only just waking up to the fact that this is about to happen and they are horrified. They know that these trucks will not only cause destruction to roads and bridges but also will contribute to more accidents. People are worried. Unfortunately this will be one of those things that people wake up to only when it is a fait accompli. They will ask why on earth our Government allowed these huge juggernaut trucks on New Zealand roads that are completely ill-suited to them. 
I am glad to see that the Minister of Transport Steven Joyce is here in the Chamber. He is the one who will make the decision as to whether these juggernaut trucks will be permitted on our roads. I suspect that he has already made the decision and that the so-called consultation process was like most consultation processes—just a farce. The Green Party put in a submission. We wasted our time. We pointed out the sorts of things that I have pointed out in my speech. But we felt that making the submission was probably to no avail and that the Minister working hand in glove with the trucking industry had probably already committed to this legislation. He had probably committed to it before the election and it is just being rolled out now. 
Having said that there is one positive thing in this bill which is why we are supporting it: it will give some incentive for electric cars. That is a good thing but let us not pretend that having 30 electric cars on our roads next year and 300 more in a few years’ time will somehow justify pouring more and more money into roads. This will undermine rail. The other thing that I did not mention about those big juggernaut trucks is that heavy freight should be moved by rail. The Government owns the rail network. I ask why it is giving incentives so that these huge trucks will be carrying our heavy freight instead of the rail network. Why is the Government undermining the viability of the rail network in New Zealand?