Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Oh thank you Madam Speaker. Look for the benefit of New Zealanders listening to this debate today or watching Parliament TV at 12.45 on a Thursday afternoon hoping to get some insights into the thinking behind this Government's and its support partners the Greens approach not just to climate policy but to policies that they believe are for the betterment of New Zealanders I want to quote a French philosopher—Albert Camus—who said The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants." That's how New Zealanders feel about not just one ute tax but ute tax 2.0 which is what this Government is imposing through this piece of legislation. Now this French philosopher was known as an absurdist because he used to write stories essentially looking at the futility of searching for meaning in an incomprehensible universe. What we've experienced today in Parliament is the futility of searching for meaning in an incomprehensible policy and regulation because the Minister of Transport was right: the ACT Party firmly believes that the emissions trading scheme the market-based scheme which puts a price on carbon emissions is in fact the only logical and rational way for New Zealanders to pay for emissions and creates an incentive to reduce the amount of carbon they emit and that no other policy is required. We know that because the Climate Change Commission said that in their advice to Government: no other policy is required except an emissions trading scheme and they even set a price of about 50 bucks a tonne of carbon that will be enough for New Zealand to reach its net zero carbon goals by 2050.What we have today is an emissions trading scheme price of $88.40 a tonne—I know because I've just looked that up—and if you fill up your car your ute your truck and trailer unit or your digger or your boat for that matter with diesel right now you'll be paying 23.5c a litre for your emissions under the emissions trading scheme because when you buy diesel you pay for your emissions. And if you're buying petrol for your car or if you've got a really fast V8 ski-boat or a jet-ski then you might be paying 20c a litre for your emissions. So not just car drivers; even people who use boats recreationally pay for their emissions under the emissions trading scheme. We think at about 20c or 23c a litre that's enough of an incentive to use less fuel.We know it must be about the right price because the Labour Government recently reduced the fuel excise duty by about 25c because they said that was hurting Kiwis too much. Well I'll tell you what: 23.5c a litre on the emissions trading scheme for diesel—that's enough of an incentive to use less. Buy a more efficient truck buy a more efficient digger and actually decide whether we're going to take a sailboat out today or whether we're going to put diesel in the big launch and go out cruising.Now look the Minister said that without this piece of legislation New Zealand will suffer greater expense and a scarcity of low-emission vehicles coming to New Zealand—a scarcity. Well it's simply not true. The vehicle manufacturers who came to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee last year made it very clear. They said "Here's the scenario you face New Zealand: between 2015 and 2018 the car manufacturers built a whole lot of factories around the world to produce things like the current model of Toyota Camry for example which is actually—some of them are hybrid. All of those current models that come out of factories in South-east Asia Japan Korea and Europe were built in factories that had a 10-year model design life." What these manufacturers told us is that between 2025 and 2028 all of their factories will be retooled to make pretty much exclusively battery and hydrogen electric light vehicles. By 2030 you won't be able to buy anything except an electric vehicle of some kind coming to New Zealand as a new vehicle. So the scarcity that the Minister warned about is a false flag. It's fake news. It's not just misinformation; it's disinformation and the people of New Zealand need to know that.Now what will this tax at the wharf do? Well it's going to put hundreds of dollars if not thousands on to the price of a new or used vehicle—like a ute like a courier van or an SUV or a people mover which large families depend on—when it hits the wharf. That's on top of the tax that you pay at the dealership now under what the Minister calls his Clean Car Discount—what ACT calls the "ute tax" which takes money from people who need to buy larger petrol and diesel vehicles and hands it to the wealthiest New Zealanders so they can buy Teslas.Now what the Minister said was without this charge actually we won't get all of these low-emissions vehicles—complete nonsense. We can only get the vehicles we can get because there's a worldwide shortage of supply. Taxing New Zealanders twice now—this is ute tax 2.0—won't make another single battery or hydrogen electric vehicle pop out of a factory miraculously in Japan with this tax. It's complete nonsense—the policy doesn't work.The Minister also pointed to pollution. He mentioned that thousands of people die every year in New Zealand because of petrol and diesel vehicles. Well I didn't see that as a problem in his Road to Zero policy where he proposes to reduce speed limits and stop New Zealanders driving. He doesn't mention pollution but if he did this is what I'd say. Since I got my driver's licence back in the 1990s New Zealand's removed lead from petrol. That caused brain damage and did kill people. We don't have lead in our petrol anymore. We've removed sulphur from diesel. Sulphur in diesel used to cause heart problems as well as lung problems; we've removed it. If you drove around New Zealand in any of our major cities on any given day you wouldn't be able to see let alone smell any pollution whatsoever. Another false flag disinformation hashtag fake news Minister Michael Wood. So what are the options? The Government could intervene in markets like they are. They could subsidise like they are with ute tax 1.0 subsidise Teslas. They could tax people's vehicles. Well they're doing that with ute tax 1.0 ute tax 2.0—this bill we have here in the House today. That's what Governments could do—they could intervene. Or they could do what ACT proposes. Get your hands off the wheel Minister. Let New Zealand drivers decide their own destiny. Now the emissions trading scheme which I mentioned before you already pay for your emissions if you put petrol or diesel in your car truck boat bus. That raises about $1.5 billion a year and that's the money that this Government with the help of climate Minister James Shaw sees fit to allocate to all their pet projects. I'm talking about the EECA Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry fund which hands out hundreds of thousands of dollars—millions of dollars in fact—to big businesses like breweries and dairy companies to upgrade their energy systems converting from say coal to electricity. Sounds great. Who knew that breweries and dairy companies need the help of the taxpayer in order to replace old equipment with new equipment? But that's what this Minister in this Government thinks is helping save us from climate change. This is what ACT says: take that billion and a half dollars that this Government is currently handing out to pet projects buying political favours engaging in corporate welfare and give that money back to Kiwis. ACT would give the revenue the one and a half billion from the emissions trading scheme back to New Zealanders in the form of a carbon tax dividend. About $250 per person—that's $750 to $1000 per household. Every year the emissions trading scheme sets a cap on emissions; no other policy tool is required. The emissions trading scheme has a price on emissions; no other policy scheme is required. The revenue from that scheme Kiwis have paid it. They paid for their emissions and what ACT says is give the money back to New Zealanders so they can decide whether they want to invest in low-emissions vehicles buy a heat pump for the home or simply pay the bills like putting diesel or petrol in the family car. That is what ACT would do. New Zealanders will agree with us—2023 election can't come soon enough. Thank you."