Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. If all you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail. If this Government has only one legislative tool in its tool box—Brett Hudson: Tax.CHRIS PENK: It's tax. The Government has only one tool at least in that sense of the word tool". A tax a levy a charge a "feebate"—by any other name it has the same effects on the people of New Zealand and the businesses of New Zealand. That's not quite Shakespeare. I've turned it around but fellow New Zealanders up and down this land know exactly what I'm talking about and the effects are being felt out there. Today I want to focus on the latest and greatest of these—no doubt at least from the Government's perspective—the so-called "feebate"—Brett Hudson: Car tax.CHRIS PENK: —in relation to vehicle imports: a car tax indeed as my colleague Brett Hudson so rightly describes it. The high-handedness of the Minister introducing this new form of tax is perhaps the most galling aspect. She says it's just a little bit more to pay.Brett Hudson: Small fee.CHRIS PENK: It's a small fee—Brett Hudson: Six grand; small fee.CHRIS PENK: —up to six grand being the small fee. It's just one more straw for the camel's back. I'm reminded of that classic phrase by a US lawmaker "It's just a billion here and a billion there. It all adds up and soon you're talking about serious money." Soon you're talking about real money. Soon you're talking about real effects for the New Zealanders out there every day who are trying to work and live in a way that reflects their desire to be free from Government interference as much as possible. So we ask ourselves: is it at least reasonable on the Minister's own terms that such a tax be introduced?Brett Hudson: No.CHRIS PENK: Well the answer is no says Mr Hudson. He's ahead of me but—spoiler alert—of course he's right on this one. So the Minister characterises it as a choice. You can choose to have one of these higher-emission cars she says or you can choose to have a lower one. But the notion of true choice is problematic when it comes to those who live in parts of New Zealand in which actually the so-called less environmentally friendly cars are necessary to do one's everyday work and living. There are five reasons for that across the country in the rural areas and of course I give a particular nod to those parts of the Helensville electorate to which this applies. The first is that it is impracticable sometimes to have a small vehicle where rural roads are in a particularly bad condition. And so in my own area despite the best efforts of the likes of Councillor Greg Sayers and road maintenance campaigner Geoff Upson—whose methods are unusual but effective—and indeed my own the roads are often quite bad and a smaller vehicle is not appropriate sometimes to get around those let alone for doing that work on the farms or other outdoor and commercial work that a ute might be much more feasible and realistic for. And in the case of my own vehicle in relation to pulling around the mobile office that I take around the electorate—"Natty" as it is affectionately known—it's not practical to have one of these cars that Minister Genter says that we should all be choosing because we can. The second aspect is that in areas of the country particularly again rural or remote areas where power supply is not reliable—for example in April 2018 parts of my electorate lost power for almost two weeks—it's not actually practical realistic or fair to expect people to be stranded because they don't have the means to recharge such vehicles. My third point is the lack of charging stations in certain parts of New Zealand. Those who don't live in such areas as Wellington or the Auckland CBD are not blessed with such resources as to be able to operate these damn things. And so it's not feasible or realistic or fair again for the Minister to pretend that that is so.Fourth the longer distances between centres of interest whether that's in relation to employment education or general life in rural and remote parts of New Zealand mean that electric vehicles are not always practicable. They can run out they will stall—just like this Government with its so-called year of delivery which I'll note as a footnote could better be characterised as a "Yeah right!" of delivery.And my fifth and final point in relation to the general behaviour change that no doubt the Minister is wanting where public transport again in more rural and remote parts of the country is not so readily available that's not a realistic aim of the policy either. It fails on its own terms and I'm very pleased to say that we oppose it wholeheartedly. The debate having concluded the motion lapsed."