Fenton Darien: Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:16951. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour):Labour is very happy to help the Government on the passage of this Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill. There is no doubt that in speaking to Part 1 the Government needs our assistance with this bill because of the mess that it has created going right back to when this road-user charges legislation was reviewed. It was passed in 2012 but debated in 2011. I remember—and I have recalled in several contributions I have made to the House—speaking to the first reading of this bill under urgency last August in 2013. It seems to be a very unfortunate trait of this Government that whenever we are talking about anything to do with roads either it is a mess or it is about putting petrol tax up and hitting the people who are struggling out there in the pocket.But as I said Labour did warn the Government way back in 2012 when this legislation was passed that the regulation-making process in this legislation that would allow the Minister to sign it off without public debate would cause problems and that indeed is what happened. What we told the Government then was that it broke the basic democratic principle that there should be no taxation without representation. There were no final numbers available for scrutiny in advance of the 2012 bill being passed into law. The actual changes were apparently going to be set by officials at some later date—and I will get into what did actually happen—and there were a number of submissions suggesting that this regulation-making power was outside the role of legislation like the 2013 Road User Charges Act and that in fact it broke that basic principle of good lawmaking.Indeed what happened was that a mess was created. The Road User Charges Act turned out to have some minor anomalies that this bill seeks to correct. Apparently they affect only a small number of vehicles and their owners. But what happened was that the Minister tried to pass a regulation that would allow this particular issue to be resolved through regulation. The Regulations Review Committee did a very good job of scrutinising those regulations. It recommended to the House back in 2012 that the regulations be disallowed because the Government had not followed the process. It had allowed excessive regulation-making decision-making that was outside the comfort zone of this Parliament and in fact of the tradition of this Parliament.The Minister then did something unprecedented by reinstating the regulations in 2013.Andrew Little: Nothing would surprise us from this Government.DARIEN FENTON: Well that is true. Minister Gerry Brownlee did not surprise us with that but he reinstated those regulations and that was an unprecedented process in this Parliament. He reinstated these regulations. Off they went to the Regulations Review Committee again and what did the Regulations Review Committee say? It said that the regulations were outside the parameters of good lawmaking in this Parliament and that they should be disallowed. So twice the Government has tried to sneak through the regulations that are proposed in this bill—the “minor” reform the “minor anomalies” with the road-user charges—using its regulation-making power. Thank goodness for the good chairpersonship of Charles Chauvel who was the chairman of the Regulations Review Committee at the time when it made the first disallowance and then also the Hon Maryan Street another hard-working member who was on the ball and actually recommended to this House that these regulations be disallowed. That is why we ended up in this House under urgency in August 2013 with the Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill.It is interesting when you think about what we could be doing if we were not having to waste our time doing this. The bill talks about “minor anomalies” with the Road User Charges Act. There are many more anomalies than this minor anomaly with the Act and I wanted to take the opportunity in the context of Part 1 to talk about some of those because they are anomalies that have been around for some time. Take the anomaly of light diesel vehicles—those under 3500 tonnes—whose owners have to pay road-user charges. People up and down the country who have light diesel vehicles who have purchased them because they want to contribute to sustainable transport in New Zealand are having to purchase road-user charges in addition to purchasing their vehicles. This issue has been raised time and again as road-user charges have been debated in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and time and again the Government has turned its back on those people who use light diesel vehicles. These are not freight vehicles. The Government has turned its back on those people and said: “We’re not interested in that. We would rather try to sneak through regulations to deal with the issue of fast tractors and other farm vehicles.” That is one anomaly and I would say that it is not a minor anomaly; I would say that it is a major anomaly.Another anomaly that has come through at the select committee when we have talked about road-user charges is the issue of road-user charges on motorhomes and campervans. I have had a number of older people ring me in the last little while since the road-user charges changed. They tell me they are paying for 11 tonnes when their vehicle is actually only 7 tonnes. Somehow with the changes that were made under the Road User Charges Act they are paying $50 more a year. We are talking about retired people on minimal incomes on restricted incomes who have bought a campervan or converted a van into a holiday bus and who are now finding that they cannot go on holiday because first they are not earning enough money because it is really really tough out there and second $50 is a lot of money for them. That is a minor anomaly. Maybe it is a major one because I certainly know that the Motor Caravan Association has been to our select committee and expressed its concerns about this on a number of occasions.In Part 2 I will talk a little bit more about some of the anomalies because there are some particularly bad ones that I have come across in the adjournment that I want to bring to the attention of the Committee. But I would say that Labour is supporting this because we think it is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do to correct anomalies when they are made. It is just a pity we have to waste House time on doing this—House time on something that was urgent back in August 2013.David Bennett: You don’t have to; you can sit down. Sit down.DARIEN FENTON: David Bennett might not think it is important to debate these issues properly but actually the Labour Party does think it is enormously important.The proposals under this bill are to exempt fast tractors—which I found quite amusing really—tractors that operate over 40 kilometres per hour on the road from road-user charges and subject them to an annual charge in lieu of road-user charges to cover the costs they impose on the road network. The bill proposes to exempt all unregistered vehicles—that is vehicles exempt from registration or not required to be registered or operating under trade plates—from road-user charges and apply to them an annual charge as well. That is all very reasonable. It should not have been missed out in the first place. The Minister should not have tried to sneak this through by way of regulation and he should not have tried to trick those on the Regulations Review Committee by reinstating the disallowed regulation and tried to sneak it in that way because he made a mess he made a stuff-up and here we are in this Parliament debating Part 1—Andrew Little: Expensive time.DARIEN FENTON: At great expense actually—great expense. Those who drive fast tractors will be looking forward to having this legislation go through. It actually should never have happened in the first place. Thank you.