Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Speaker. National for the sake of the member Anna Lorck will be supporting this legislation. But we do so with some caveats and some concerns about the process that has led to us this evening having the House sit in urgency passing every stage of this piece of legislation without any due scrutiny by select committee without any opportunity for submitters to have a say to give us the benefit of their wisdom for stakeholders not to have any input and in response to what has clearly been a panicked announcement by the Government as a result not so much of international matters but as a result of a very domestic but challenging for the Government bad poll.So what we found was that in the words of Bob Carter's famous quote Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine." And now we are in fact as a Parliament having to make up for the Government's poor planning for their poor forethought foresight and their lack of actual understanding about how the road-user charge (RUC) system works off the back of their rushed announcement that they were going to give some relief to car drivers who have petrol and diesel vehicles. So not much thought went into it.It's easy enough to use a piece of legislation or make the announcement for a temporary reduction in the price of petrol at the petrol pump—that can be done more or less without any legislative need—but for road-user charges far more complicated. And my colleagues have already addressed several of the matters that relate to the issues that we see in this but I want to turn to the usual analysis that will be made by way of departmental disclosure statement. Sitting on the table is the disclosure statement from the Ministry of Transport and it is remarkable in terms of the telling insight that it produces for how ill prepared the Government were and how rushed their announcement was.So on the face of it we've been told that this legislation is required because of international affairs but those international situations have been now in place for over a month—for quite a long time. And it was obvious right from day one that international oil prices would be affected. All around the world prices were going up and having an impact on people at the pump. So one would have thought that a diligent thorough careful and prudent Minister would have initiated some kind of action earlier than he did. But no the Minister was completely side-lined by his ideological policy agenda in his other portfolio areas and had neglected to think much about what was going to be required in terms of detail relating to diesel users. So a rapid response to create the announcement—that's typical of this Government. They do that very well. They announce announcements and they do it oozing empathy but no attention to detail or delivery. And they of course completely neglected to understand the implications for offering publicly to reduce the price of diesel and they didn't think about the implications for the road-user charge system.So in the departmental disclosure statement it says that the policy was developed in response to a rapidly changing international situation impacting on the price of fuel—fair enough. And then it goes on to say—and this is the telling part—"There are no relevant inquiries reviews or evaluation reports relevant to the policy." I'll read that again: "There are no relevant inquiries reviews or evaluation reports relevant to the policy." There is however an intention to release relevant papers relating to the decision to reduce petrol excise duty and road-user charges as soon as they are ready for proactive release. Now that's bureaucratic speak for "Nobody talked to the Ministry of Transport nobody consulted with them in advance and they had no warning that this announcement was about to be made and they were not prepared for it."The disclosure statement goes on to list a whole lot of sort of standard questions that are usually asked of pieces of legislation. Does the bill seek to give effect to any New Zealand action in relation to international treaty? No. Were any regulatory impact statements provided to inform the policy decisions that led to this bill? And then it goes on to repeat that it was done in response to a rapidly evolving international situation and as such no regulatory impact statement has been completed. Again that's bureaucratic code for "We were blindsided by the Minister we were blindsided by the announcement and we weren't ready or prepared as a ministry to offer advice or assistance on how this policy might be implemented."And so the Government has stumbled their way through this in a pretty amateur way really. And it's probably I would think a matter of some considerable embarrassment to a Minister who normally likes to rank himself highly in terms of his efficiency and his ability to be on top of his portfolios. Most of us know that that's little more than a veneer but to the general public many of them still believe it. But what we find in the disclosure statement from the Ministry of Transport is one of the most telling pieces which was that the final question is in terms of—well there were two final questions I wish to highlight in this contribution. One was at 3.6 which says "Has there been any external consultation on the policy to be given effect by this bill or on a draft bill?" And the answer simply is a one word stark "No." No consultation on the policy to be given effect by this bill.Then finally in what is ultimately a most damning indictment on the lack of preparedness by this Government for this piece of legislation that they are going to ram through the Parliament tonight under urgency using their absolute majority is the question "Have the policy details being given effect by this bill been otherwise tested or assessed in any way to ensure the bill's provisions are workable and complete?" And the answer is that a workshop was held with the New Zealand Transport Agency—the RUC collector—and that was held on 23 March to test and assess the workability of the bill. A workshop was held on 23 March but the announcement was made on 14 March. So the New Zealand Transport Agency was caught short again by trying to have to administer this legislation caught without awareness caught without notice caught without any kind of sense that it was coming. So we've got some questions in relation to how this could have happened and how the Government could have been caught so flatfooted in terms of what they are seeking to achieve. The bill provides for a temporary respite for people who use petrol drive petrol vehicles and of course at the same time that announcement was made the grand sweeping statement was made and the same 25c reduction will apply to RUC. And it was immediately obvious—it was funny. I was looking at social media literally minutes after the announcement was made and there was an avalanche a tsunami of commentary coming from RUC users diesel vehicle drivers saying "Well how on earth is this going to work? Because we buy RUC in advance we buy RUC in usually 10000 kilometre or 1000 kilometre blocks and we pay for the RUC not at the pump." And so the users the people who were actually involved with this were very aware very quickly that this was an unworkable solution that had been announced by the Government and it became very clear almost immediately after the announcement that corrective legislation would be required.Well that's what the House is debating tonight under urgency. That is the corrective legislation that will have to be passed through without any scrutiny by the select committee process that we usually hold dear in this Parliament and I don't think that's good enough from a Government for a temporary measure that is actually going to run out in the not too distant future. The real challenge for this Government will be not the temporary relaxation and assistance they're providing to New Zealanders who are suffering under the cost of living crisis but the real challenge for this Government will be what on earth are they going to do at the end of this temporary period when the full impact of the cost of living crisis at the petrol pump and at the diesel pump is going to be again reflected on the long-suffering squeezed middle in New Zealand the people who are productive?"