Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. The ACT Party believes in good quality regulation good quality public policy. But before regulations are made it's important to ask the question what problem are we trying to solve? And do we even need regulation? Or can we trust those organisations which have the responsibility to build and operate and deliver safely to actually come up with their own safe systems at work. That is a question that will always challenge Government and that ACT will always challenge the Government on. Why do we need more regulations when in fact those businesses with skin in the game and who have responsibilities under the Health and Safety at Work Act as persons conducting a business or undertaking already have clear responsibilities in terms of maritime safety road transport and civil aviation safety. So while the ACT Party supports the intent of this bill and this amendment we have grave concerns about the ability of the agencies tasked with enforcing the regulations and auditing to actually do what they are supposed to do.There are some very serious concerns that have been raised over the past few weeks. We've heard from Radio New Zealand that people who were too afraid to submit on New Zealand Transport Agency's (NZTA's) role in auditing and checking heavy vehicle certification took the extreme measure of contacting Radio New Zealand using a burner phone to communicate their very serious and legitimate concerns about NZTA's performance in safety auditing and checking and the lack of professional development in certifying those heavy trucks and buses and other vehicles which our economy depends on but also everybody relies on being safely operated on the road. More recently in the past few days Radio New Zealand the State broadcaster that fountain of all knowledge and truth has reported that now the Heavy Vehicle Engineers—that organisation responsible for delivering these heavy trucks and buses and trailers on our roads—has finally found the courage to stand up and repeat those claims in public. The concerns they've raised are that despite the regulations and the instruments that NZTA will be given through this bill they don't believe that the agency has the competency or the goodwill to actually work in partnership with industry to make sure that all of those heavy trucks and buses and other plant and equipment on the road have actually been designed and constructed and are being operated safely. So it's all very well to set up regulations with good intent but the test is actually the outcome. Are the roads safer? Do road users have more confidence when they're passing a truck on the road? That remains to be seen. So the ACT Party focuses on outcomes not good intentions and while we support this bill and its intentions the proof will be in the outcomes. Then there's the matter of a hypothecated tax—the fuel excise duty—which it appears for many many years has been applied to the aviation sector to all of those operators who've chosen to switch from the much more dangerous and toxic aviation gas what is commonly known as Avgas which contains lead for the purpose of lubricating aviation engines. There's been a revolution over the past few years in that small aircraft engines and larger ones too now can actually run on motor fuel or Mogas. That is the fuel—a high octane like a 95 or a 98—that you might put in your car. That can also run a six-cylinder engine like in your Cessna Caravan or the other aircraft that you might use to get around the country to and from regional airports. It's not just the commercial operators but the flight schools. There's one in Christchurch which uses 200000 litres of fuel a year. At 70c a litre fuel excise duty that's about $140000 that they've been paying to the Government every year in fuel excise duty and having received no benefits from it. The bill that is being debated—and that will most likely be passed—today takes that hypothecated road user tax and now applies it belatedly to a definition of aircraft safety. Those operators have rightly pointed out that they are already paying levies on aircraft safety and aviation safety through their civil aviation levies. The Minister wasn't able to clearly explain the difference today and he has offered to have further discussions on that but it seems like for many many years these people whether they're recreational pilots or whether they're running a pilot training school have rightly been asking how do we apply for our exemption? How do we apply to get our fuel excise duty back when your local lawn mowing contractor can but we can't? That seems manifestly unfair. I have a funny feeling that the representations of that sector and those stakeholders are what have led the Minister to come to the House belatedly with a Supplementary Order Paper to amend the original bill to make sure that NZTA and the Government wasn't exposed to that risk of having taken a tax hypothecated on road users and the benefits of roads and applied it potentially in a way that is unacceptable to other matters. We know that if you look at Auckland's regional fuel tax for example hypothecated on delivering better transport outcomes for Auckland they've collected around about $380 million through that regional fuel tax. It's hypothecated to deliver better connections and better transport outcomes for Auckland. About half of it sits in an account unused and unallocated at a time when we know Auckland is choking with congestion where there are a large number of unfunded vitally important connection projects like East West Link which have been approved which are regarded by all of the stakeholders apart from one who is challenging this in court and who has missed their point entirely. All of the stakeholders involved in the design and implementation including mana whenua groups including organisations like Auckland Council which has extensive landholdings along the Onehunga waterfront which are heavily contaminated with old landfills—the Onehunga catchment contains some of New Zealand's worst contaminated aquifers. And one of the things that the East West Link project was going to do was create a virtual dam around the Onehunga foreshore contain all that contaminated groundwater and storm water and actually treat it and that was going to be a net environmental improvement. So when we're thinking about regulations that improve outcomes rather than just good intention it's really important to think about the long-term strategy. What are our objectives here? When we're thinking about projects that desperately need funding like East West Link in Auckland to unlock the economic potential of south-east and south-west Auckland to create a transport corridor that means trucks can get from their depots and from the rail hubs in South Auckland to the port—when there's $180 million sitting in a bank account unallocated and unused that really grates with our stakeholders. So what the ACT Party would advocate for is that any regulation that comes to the House to make regulating or improving the transport systems the administration of transport easier should be considered against the need to get Auckland moving and the rest of the country moving and unlock our potential. So in closing the ACT Party supports this bill but we support this bill because we share the Government's intention that regulating through transport instruments becomes much easier for the industry to comply with. But what we also insist on is that the Minister holds his agencies and departments to account for their poor performance in the past and to understand why that performance was poor in safety auditing and checking heavy vehicles on the road and we insist that any transport instruments that are created under this amendment actually have the buy-in and support of stakeholders in the sector are easy to administer at minimal or reduced cost and are practical to implement because it's only the outcome that this will be judged on. Thank you Madam Speaker.