Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Mr Chair thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill and I specifically want to speak to the first part. I specifically want to speak to an amendment that I've tabled which seeks to amend the definitions in new section 65A in clause 5 which is specifically around exemptions. While I acknowledge and thank the Minister of Transport for at least taking a couple of calls on this debate to highlight the fact that a lot of the exemptions in the current rules are not clear I particularly in my own role as National's spokesperson on horticulture wish to support my industry and the people who have made submissions around exemptions to the regional fuel tax.While I acknowledge that the Minister has said that regional fuel taxes and the exemption process and the regional excise duty are all up for grabs that is of very little comfort to the people I represent and the people that came to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. In fact Horticulture New Zealand submitted that those elements of the bill that are yet to be described in Order in Council are particularly worrying for them and by the comments of the Minister today they have no actual extra support or understanding of what it has meant because it's all going to be done by regulation and for them that is cold comfort.Horticulture New Zealand has proposed that the Ministry of Transport's exempt use for agricultural vehicles be used across horticultural vehicles as well and the bill as it's written proposes that the rebate mechanism that's already used for the fuel excise duty is used. But as the Minister has acknowledged it doesn't actually work that well. It is notoriously complicated and the horticultural industry is not satisfied with the concessions if you like from the Minister that have been given today or what was written in the bill. There are exemptions for non - road-based uses under the road-user charges and Horticulture New Zealand is simply asking that those same exemptions apply. The amendment simply says that after paragraph (e) there is a new paragraph (f) which says any use for commercial horticultural activities". If you think about vehicles all around New Zealand the horticultural use that goes between one orchard and another between one farm and another—actually those are not vehicles that should really be paying fuel excise tax road-user tax or certainly not a regional fuel tax that actually would support at the moment a regional fuel tax in Auckland.I say this because while this bill is written to specifically deal with an issue in Auckland currently it also allows other parts of New Zealand to deal with the same issues should they wish and that is a significant imposition on cost and people and in my humble opinion I'm not sure that's been thoroughly worked out. So when an industry comes to me and has written emails to me and asks me to advocate on their behalf I am of course going to do that because I completely support them. So while the Minister stood up in this Chamber and in the first of his two or three comments this afternoon said that they're going to look at something why would members of this Parliament let alone New Zealand say we're going to come to it and it will be right in the end?The people I represent in my region did not hear the Labour Government—or the Labour Party at the time in the election campaign—advocating for a new tax a regional fuel tax that would be able to be put in other parts of New Zealand. Sure we heard about Auckland and if the Government was true to its word it would have simply allowed this bill to relate to Auckland. What I'm concerned about and the people I represent is that actually it's allowed to go across the rest of New Zealand. For the Minister to give us some comfort that somehow we are going to look at fuel excise duties road-user charges and the regional fuel tax—because we acknowledge it's not fair—is actually not good enough when this legislation has the ability to go right across New Zealand from 2021.So in the first instance I think the Minister has short-changed the people of New Zealand in terms of the exemption process and I ask him to consider a genuine desire and put in new paragraph (f) as listed in my amendment."