Court Simon; Kuriger BarbaraSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. Look the ACT Party won't be supporting this bill but not because we don't share the concerns of the industry who have said Look this bill's not ready the regulations aren't ready to implement New Zealand Transport Agency has had to hire 80 more pen-pushers to try to do manual processing." We really appreciate the fact that the industry was going to have to start complying and paying a fee on new vehicles and used vehicles arriving on the wharf from 1 January. I mean who in their right mind would pass a piece of legislation that forces an entire industry to prepare for and report on compliance on 1 January? Doesn't the Minister of Transport know that New Zealand shuts down and has a Christmas holiday for just a few weeks a year? Before we get into the real problems with the piece of primary legislation and this amendment I just want to respond to the member the Hon Julie Anne Genter. I understand it was one of her thought bubbles that led to this piece of legislation in the first place. Julie Anne Genter described some of the problems that have caused climate change. She said that civil engineers caused climate change because of our need to build roads and our need to build things apparently out of concrete and steel and non-renewable materials and she said that if you build roads you'll make the traffic worse. Well I've got a different perspective to the Green Party's Julie Anne Genter and probably quite a different perspective to the current Minister of Transport Michael Wood who's just joined us here in the House to hear what ACT thinks. Thank you Minister Wood for joining us. Now let's just address traffic congestion first. What causes climate emissions? It's sitting in traffic being stuck in traffic for up to five days a year for Aucklanders—just waiting at the lights stuck in traffic instead of moving at the posted road speed. Now that's bound to cause more emissions than just driving your vehicle at an efficient speed and getting to your destination on time. The Green member the Hon Julie Anne Genter said that building roads makes traffic worse. Well I want to offer a perspective on that. Near where I live in West Auckland there's a little town called Kūmeu and it's a lovely little town. It's on State Highway 16. About 20 years ago the council at the time—and since then the new Auckland Council—zoned that area of Auckland to take tens of thousands of homes. Since then about 12000 have been built—since about 2007—and that means about 30000 people have moved to the area. Now on State Highway 16 between Kūmeu and the north-western motorway they have 36000 vehicles a day using what is primarily a two-lane rural road. That's a 45-minute journey which should be a 10-minute journey. There are 36000 vehicles a day crammed into a two-lane rural road and 36000 vehicles a day is the number of vehicles that pass through the Takanini interchange which is six lanes wide on State Highway 1. So when the member Julie Anne Genter—and no doubt Minister Michael Wood will stand up to defend his transport policy at some point—says that building roads isn't the answer well tell that to the people of Auckland who have responded logically. Where councils have zoned for people to live and they've bought homes there and they live there it's a surprise to them when a Government or its support partner the Greens say that building roads isn't the answer. Frankly they thought that the road would be delivered because that's where the zoning said that they should live. So there's another issue there which is the fundamental disconnect between urban planning and infrastructure provision. Now I want to come to the major problems with this bill. The bill apparently is going to help us meet our climate targets. The Clean Car Discount is a separate piece of legislation which taxes utes and vans and people who want to buy petrol and diesel vehicles and it then gives a subsidy to those who would prefer to buy and can afford to pay some extra money to buy an electric vehicle or a low-emissions vehicle like a Tesla. Now it seems remarkable that a Government that purports to support the lowest-income people and to stand up for the workers—as well as being the Minister of Transport he's also the Minister of Immigration and Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety who has introduced the fair pay agreements to the House and is so proud of all his achievements in standing up for workers. He doesn't seem to think that applying an additional tax on people who have large families and who need to buy a larger petrol or diesel vehicle tradies who need to take the tools to the job site or courier drivers and other people who need to buy a Toyota Hiace van or something similar—by taxing them it might be at odds with all of this Government's stated position on how much they care for working people. I think we know that they don't really care Minister. Then I want to come to some of the other problems with this policy in the bill. There's no point in having any policies that cost the taxpayer and consumers money to reduce climate emissions when all the emissions are already capped under the emissions trading scheme. The Minister knows that this doesn't reduce emissions any more than they would be reduced by paying an emissions trading scheme charge and paying for your carbon and every Kiwi who fills up at the pump with petrol or diesel currently pays 20c a litre for their emissions. This policy doesn't reduce emissions at all. Then we come to the problems with the bill. Well when the car manufacturers came to select committee they told the Labour Green National and ACT MPs sitting on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that it didn't matter a darn if this Government taxed utes and vans arriving on the wharf if they applied a clean car standard and a clean car discount because not a single extra electric vehicle would be manufactured in a factory in Europe Japan South-east Asia or Korea because of this policy. The car companies that make cars have a production line that is maxed out and it doesn't matter whether New Zealand taxes utes subsidises Teslas or taxes new or used vehicles arriving at the wharf because there is no factory in Japan South Korea or Europe that's going to make a single extra car that will have the effect of reducing global emissions because of this policy. This is bad policy and that's why ACT doesn't support the primary legislation and it's why even though we feel very strongly that the motor vehicle importers new and used have been hard-done-by by the provisions of this legislation which requires them to start taxing vehicles as they arrive at the wharf on 1 January—they've been hard-done-by. We won't be able to support this amendment because we think that the bill and the presumptions behind the bill are absolutely flawed. So then people say "Well what would ACT do? Does ACT care about the climate and does ACT care about emissions in the environment?" Well of course we do. I trained as an environmental scientist because I cared about the climate and I wanted to make sure that in the work that I did and the companies that I worked for we protected and enhanced the environment. I've got children. I care about intergenerational issues. I want them to enjoy the same kinds of experiences in the environment—Shanan Halbert: Just not willing to do anything about it.SIMON COURT: —whether it's hunting whether it's swimming at the beach or whether it's being able to dig in the garden and plant fruit and vegetables knowing that the site is not contaminated. That's what I want for my children. You say "What would ACT do about climate change—what would ACT do?" Well we say that the emissions trading scheme is the way to price emissions and if you have a cap on emissions no other policy is necessary. The $1.5 million to $2 million that's collected under the emissions trading scheme from people who put diesel in the ute from people who put diesel in the truck and in the digger and from people who fuel up their petrol-powered vehicles like my Subaru Outback—we pay for our emissions every time we fill up and drive. ACT says the emissions trading scheme is the best way to incentivise people to use less fuel and reduce their emissions because it puts a price on emissions. But because climate change is a global issue we would also modify the emissions trading scheme to allow New Zealand businesses—people who emit carbon—to engage with other countries and businesses and communities in other countries to actually reduce emissions in their country. Imagine being able to restore mangroves or restore a forest where orang-utans live claiming the carbon credits and actually enhance global biodiversity. That's ACT's climate policy. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): Thank you Mr Court."