Genter Julie Anne; Pugh MaureenHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's amazing that the Government introduced this bill with the claim that it was going to provide more certainty to the industry because it does the exact opposite. But I've come to believe that this is a deliberate strategy of the Government and it's quite Orwellian to just say that what you're doing is the opposite of what you're actually doing and then say the opposite about the previous Government as well. So everything that they say about what the previous Government did is really what they are doing like cancelling contracts for ferries for example. And here they say they're introducing a bill to increase certainty when there is no way we can read this bill as increasing certainty.It is increasing uncertainty; it is reducing certainty because the targets have been set out in legislation for years and New Zealand was well on its way to reducing emissions far beyond what those targets were thanks to the Clean Car Discount. We've got the facts on that. And now because they removed the Clean Car Discount our average emissions of vehicles coming into the country have massively increased. Now we just have to put this into context OK? Because literally the only solution this Government has for reducing emissions from transport is electric cars. And the only steps they have taken are increasing the emissions of the cars coming into the country. So they're increasing emissions from cars. So there's no way to take seriously their commitment to meeting any climate targets carbon reduction targets. It's just not true. They have no commitment to that because their actions are doing the exact opposite.And the sad thing about it is that it also is bad for New Zealand economically because we spend a lot of money just trying to move around the country. And people and businesses and households have to spend a lot of money on fuel to move around the country. And all of that fuel is imported because despite whatever you want to do with oil and gas exploration we have never produced the kind of oil that is used in cars and trucks in New Zealand. So it just means importing more oil and spending more money on getting around. And who benefits from this policy? Well they make it out that it's some sort of individual choice but actually the real beneficiaries of this policy are the manufacturers of high-emissions vehicles because those are more profitable for them. But they aren't in New Zealand. New Zealand doesn't benefit from more New Zealanders buying high-emissions vehicles. It just means we have more pollution and we spend more money on petrol and diesel. And diesel by the way has a lot of harmful health impacts that are not being taken into account so we're paying for it over and over and over again.But the Minister of Transport of course is very engaged in the public opinion the opinions of the people who comment on his Facebook posts. We know that his version of reality is entirely shaped by the comments on his Facebook posts—not actual data and evidence about what New Zealanders want and what is actually happening. So some of the high-emitting vehicle importers are opposed to those targets because they want to sell more high-emissions vehicles in New Zealand.But what is happening overseas? There's this claim that New Zealand can't control what's happening overseas. Well guess what? The targets are entirely in line—and I know you won't be able to see this graph I'll have to bring a larger version of it to future debates. But the targets were actually entirely in line with what other countries are doing. So what this bill is doing is it means that we are going to again fall behind because before the Clean Car Discount and before the Clean Car Standard were introduced we had some of the highest average emissions of new vehicles imported into New Zealand. We had 189 grams of carbon per kilometre and it was decreasing at a rate of only 2.6 per year. After the Clean Car Discount was brought in we saw a huge trend in reducing the average emissions of the vehicles coming into the country and the combination of the Clean Car Discount and Standard was transformational. We got to the point that the average emissions in May 2024 would have been down to 92 grams per kilometre. So if we hadn't removed the price incentive vehicle manufacturers absolutely would have been able to meet this.I have to say this user-pays plan for administering the scheme is really interesting but there's no detail about it in the bill. So how can we say this is increasing certainty for the industry when literally you're bringing in a power to be able to regulate and charge them money and we don't know how we're going to do that.So it's just Orwellian. I congratulate the Minister on his mastery of doublethink. He's master of absolute black and white lies and propaganda.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Order! That was very unparliamentary. The member will stand withdraw and apologise.Hon Julie Anne Genter: I withdraw and apologise.