Belich Camilla; Brown SimeonCAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you Mr Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on this because I don't believe we have heard answers from the Minister of Transport. The purpose of the committee stage is for us to be able to as Opposition members or members from around the House actually get answers from the Minister and this question has been put to him: how is the principle of the legislation—and you have to go to the Land Transport Act to find the principle—consistent with the bill that he has put in front of the House? One of the key purposes of a committee stage is to look at the bill in front of us—James Meager: Clause.CAMILLA BELICH: —and to see how well the particular—this is actually a really good point thank you Mr Meager. The point that Mr Meager was making is that we're actually looking at clause 3 the Principal Act" and that clause 3 says that it amends the Land Transport Act. When we look to Standing Orders and we wonder you know what is the purpose of the committee stage we look to the Standing Orders and we see Standing Order 310 and we see that in 310(1) the purpose of the committee of the whole House stage is "to determine [if] the bill properly incorporates the principles or objects of the bill as read a second time by the House." Now the question before the committee is: does this bill properly incorporate the principles and objects of the Act? This is the only time we can talk about this because this is where the principles of the Act are outlined.Now the Minister could have put a different purpose in this bill. He could've put a more substantive purpose in this amendment bill; that would be totally within his ambit. He's chosen not to do that—he's chosen not to do that—and the reason we know that is because it's not in front of us. So the only thing we have to do is to go back to the original principal Act which is the only time we can talk about this in clause 3; look at the Land Transport Act; look at the relevant part—we know that we're amending Part 13. When we look at Part 13 we see that the object is "to achieve a rapid reduction in carbon dioxide"—not just a reduction; a rapid reduction and when we look at this piece of legislation do we see a rapid reduction? No; we see possible increases in carbon emissions. That is inconsistent with the object of the principle of this Act. It is a question before the committee that the Minister has not answered.Now I saw him looking at his phone—I hope he was looking at this section. I hope he was researching how he can answer as Minister responsible for this bill how there is consistency with the principle of the primary principal Act that we're discussing in the amendment bill that he is putting through.Now the response that we have heard to date is that the last Government amended the Land Transport Act 1998 so he too while amending the Land Transport Act has also chosen that particular piece of legislation. Now that logic doesn't follow. It doesn't follow because there is a duty under Standing Orders to make sure that the amendments are consistent. The question put by members of the Opposition is: how is it consistent? We haven't heard an answer to that yet.I know that there is a desire to have a back and forth and to have engagement and I think it would actually be a disservice to this committee to take a closure motion and move on to another part where we cannot discuss the principal purposes of this Act without having a response from the Minister.So I ask again Minister: how is the bill that you have put in front of the House consistent with the aims and objectives as in the principal Act the Land Transport Act 1998 as outlined in section 170 of the principal Act? How is that consistent? Please don't say it's because the last Government did it because we already know that that logic doesn't stack up.Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): I have already answered the question in relation to the reason we're amending the Land Transport Act 1998. It is because the last Government chose to put the clean vehicle standard into the Land Transport Act. This Government is committed to a clean vehicle standard. We've already debated that as part of clause 1 which had a wider debate on the bill. This particular clause is incredibly narrow and this simply enables the amendment to this Act."