Brown Simeon; Wood MichaelSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Mr Chair for the opportunity to take a call. Of course in normal times this would have had the opportunity to go through the select committee stage and submitters would have been able to have their say. In fact they have had their say when this went through the law back in February and of course they said that this was being rushed and now we're here at this stage where we're actually having to fix in Part 1 one of the stuff-ups the Minister's caused in regards to motorbikes and mopeds. Of course officials advised him about the rush—the submitters certainly advised about the rush—and so the question now will be whether this actually fixes it and that we're not actually going to be back here in six months' time sorting out more problems because we're rushing this legislation through under urgency. So my question in regards to Part 1 in regards to the definitional changes effectively of which vehicle importers must hold carbon dioxide accounts which replaces the words light vehicle" with "Type A" or "Type B" vehicles—I ask the Minister when was he first advised that this was going to be an issue when did officials advise that this was something which would require a law change? When was draft legislation provided to the Minister? When did industry tell him that this was going to be an issue? What did they tell him and why is it being rushed through now rather than having been fixed earlier? Because the reality is we're using urgency to fix a problem which from my understanding has been known about for some months. And now we're here in late November with the carbon dioxide accounts required to be opened by 1 December fixing a stuff-up which he knew about for some time. So I'd like the Minister to be transparent because if we had had a select committee stage we would have had the ability to ask officials a lot of questions to get answers to those questions. Now all we've got is the Minister from the most open and transparent Government in New Zealand's history apparently here and this is our only avenue and our only opportunity to actually get answers to these questions. So I look forward to a bit of openness and transparency and maybe a little bit of an apology to the Parliament and to New Zealanders that we're having to spend this time fixing up a stuff-up. There's been no acknowledgment from this Government and from this Minister that there's actually been a mistake made. If he just stood up and just said "We made a mistake." a lot of New Zealanders would go "Well thank goodness someone's acknowledged they made a mistake. And yeah we understand." and move on. But there's been no acknowledgment that he's been talking high and mighty about climate change and we have to do this and his aspirations and his woke virtue signalling. But he can't just say "I'm sorry. I got this wrong. We stuffed this up. We made a mess. We didn't listen. We rushed it and here we're back." Just an acknowledgment of a mistake I think would go down extremely well with many New Zealanders. But the arrogance of this Government has seeped right through to the top. We've seen it in the comments earlier. The river of insults that have come from the Minister's mouth earlier towards my colleague David Bennett I thought was an absolute low blow—Hon Member: Disgraceful.SIMEON BROWN: Disgraceful and demeaning for the man who aspires to be the next Prime Minister of New Zealand and something which I think is just something which he should apologise for as well. So I ask those questions. This is our one opportunity to get answers around when he was advised. What advice was he given? When was the bill drafted? When did the industry tell him this was a problem? Why did we not have this legislation earlier? And why will he just not apologise to the House and to New Zealanders for a stuff-up?Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): This is the committee stage of the debate. It's an important part of the parliamentary process to examine in detail parts of legislation that have been brought to the House. I'm very happy. I don't think this is the time to engage in political speeches so I'll keep to the issue and respond to the questions that Mr Brown has asked. Mr Brown is effectively correct that the definition around light vehicles versus categories 1 and 2 is effectively an error from the legislation. It has meant that there has been a lack of clarity around whether motorcycles or mopeds have to set up carbon dioxide accounts. Again I'll just repeat that there's actually no fundamental issue here in respect of whether motorcycles and mopeds have fees or rebates that apply to them. They don't. There's never been any lack of clarity around that. So that's something that the Government owns and that I own and that's why we brought a change to the House in order to correct that error. I do note that this was not actually a rushed legislative process. The original legislation went through a full legislative process a full select committee process a full committee of the whole House stage and actually wasn't an issue that was picked up by anyone at that time including submitters and including our noble Opposition who had the ability to examine the legislation at select committee and in the committee of the whole House. It is an error in a complex piece of legislation and we're fixing it now. That is the state of it. When was I first advised of this? A few months ago around about July August. It was probably first brought to my attention through engagement with industry. Since that time I sought advice from officials to try to determine whether there are other ways of managing the issue and we determined that the best and most appropriate way of providing clarity was to change the legislation so that there were absolutely no doubts about the requirement to set up a carbon dioxide account. That's what we're doing today."