Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Mr Speaker. If ever there was an example of truth in the old adage that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing it was in the speech that we heard from the Minister of Transport in this third reading debate. Now we have a Minister who is very full of his own importance and he is determined to follow the ideological bent of his party at every possible opportunity. He never misses a chance to do that. But just as the last speaker Greg O'Connor did he conflates an issue that relates to climate action and the lowering of our transport emissions with tax and using punitive taxes to actually try and encourage or change behaviour. Now on this side of the House we know that that doesn't work. Actually the most disappointing aspect of this piece of legislation is that it puts New Zealanders against New Zealanders and this has become a hallmark of this Government: divide division pitching one group of New Zealanders against another. So in order to appease the demands of their flash friends in Grey Lynn they are going to punish vast numbers of New Zealanders who don't have choice and who can't afford it and those people who don't have choice and can't afford it are going to be forced to pay a premium for the vehicles of their choice so that free money can be given to the Labour Party's flash friends in Grey Lynn to buy their expensive electric cars. Now don't get me wrong—I'm a great fan and an advocate and a long-term owner of an electric car and I am a great convert and ambassador for them. The previous member said that they are cost-neutral but it's actually better than that. They are far superior to being cost-neutral; they are cost-positive in terms of outcome. But it takes a little bit of time because you have to get over the hump if you like of the initial capital cost. Once that is over then what happens is that the cost of running it and the cost of maintenance very quickly provide a better return than on a fossil-fuelled internal combustion vehicle. But the problem with all that from this Government's point of view is that right at the minute there isn't the range of choice that is available. I would love it if there was and there will be soon. There will be in years to come. There will be in years to come but right now as this legislation is going through this Parliament those choices are not available. So this is as my colleague Simeon Brown said really an exercise in wealth redistribution. That goes to the very core and heart of Labour Party socialist philosophy and idealism and that's always what they're trying to do. What they could have been doing if they were thoughtful and careful about it is they could have been targeting a programme of incentives that didn't pitch one group of New Zealanders against another group of New Zealanders. They could have been pitching a range of imaginative incentives to middle-income New Zealanders because that's where the real economic benefit is. It's not people like members in this House who can afford to buy a $60000 or a $70000 vehicle but the impact on a low or medium income family that has high maintenance costs and high fuel costs on an old dunger would be much enhanced if they were into a reasonably priced electric vehicle (EV) because the maintenance would be less. The cost of running and driving and fuelling that vehicle would be far less and that would be something that I would have thought the Labour Party would embrace. But no they have deferred again to their flash friends in Grey Lynn and other parts of the trendy suburbs of Auckland who like to ride on slow trams along Dominion Road and who sit and drink chardonnay. They like that. But this is classic Labour Party Big State knows best" big thinking and "We will tell you how to spend your money and what cars you should buy what vehicles you should buy and we will tell you from the balcony of the Beehive. By issuing proclamations and passing legislation in this Parliament we will teach you how you should live." Now Helen Clark got into exactly the same kind of philosophical problem when she tried to mandate low-flow showers and energy-efficient light bulbs and that should have been a lesson to this Labour Government who are now so out of touch with middle New Zealand. People don't like to have a finger waved at them and be told how they should make purchasing decisions. Stuart Smith: Nanny State—nanny State. Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: It is nanny State as Stuart Smith says. It's very nanny State. Helen Clark paid a price for that and so too will this Government because it's not just in this area that they are doing it. It's a range of issues that they adopt at every possible opportunity. The Minister talked a little bit about the unanimity across this Parliament in terms of the broad direction of climate initiatives and our pathway towards Net Zero 2050 and the Minister is absolutely right: this Parliament passed without dissension that legislation and that was a good thing. But the real issue is how that pathway is traversed and what actions are taken. Yes the independent Climate Change Commission makes recommendations but it's up to the politicians of the day and the Government of the day to either accept or reject that advice that comes from the Climate Change Commission. Now that was why it was set up. It was set up deliberately that way—that's why we supported it; presumably that's why the Government supported it—because we wanted to have independent advice. Nothing wrong with that but the final decisions are made by the politicians and Government of the day. Now in this case this Government has taken an ideological and philosophical approach that they are going to mandate decision making for New Zealanders and take out of the hands of New Zealanders the decisions that they usually should fairly and properly make by fiddling with market forces. They're robbing one sector of New Zealanders—the productive sector—and offering free money to another sector who want to buy and can afford to buy expensive electric cars. I think and we on this side of the House think that that philosophy is wrong. It's not the question of lowering our emissions that's wrong it's not the pathway towards net zero that is wrong it's not the decarbonisation of our economy that is wrong it is not the transition from molecules to electrons that is wrong; it's the way this Government is seeking to do it that is wrong. That's why we are opposing it and that is a matter that this Government simply fails to grasp. In so doing perversely they have actually got to a point now where a whole lot of New Zealanders because they feel they are being punished or being forced into decisions that they would prefer to make themselves have now become anti-EV and I've noticed that as an owner and a driver of an EV. The mood has changed significantly because there are a whole lot of people who feel that they are being pushed cajoled and put through some kind of cattle race into a decision that they have no real control over. So the difficulty is that we now as I say have these two groups of New Zealanders divided and this has become a hallmark of this Government. Now the Minister mentioned that—surprise surprise—the number of EV purchases has gone up since the scheme came into effect in July of last year. Well these are people who had been waiting for four years for this Government to do it. The Government signalled this four years ago so what happened was that the demand for EVs dropped off significantly until the free money was available and why wouldn't it? Why wouldn't people wait? Well if there's an opportunity to save $8000 on a new EV they would be crazy not to wait and so that's exactly what they did. They waited. But what the Minister didn't tell the House was that in the period of time until the punitive taxes on utes and other vehicles for instance that are affected by this piece of legislation come into effect what's happening is that those vehicles are being bought in massively large numbers as people try to get ahead of the curve and the imposition of the extra tax.This is a Government that takes a philosophical view. They have when it comes to pretty much any policy issue only three options: to make it compulsory to tax it or to ban it. This is an absolutely classic example of a Labour Government wanting to tax ban or make compulsory behaviour that should actually be left to the decision making of ordinary New Zealanders who are perfectly capable of making good decisions for themselves."