Ferris TākutaTĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Pīka otirā ki tō tātou Whare tēnā rā tātou. E tū ana au ki te waha i ā te Pāti Māori anga mō tēnei o ngā pire e mea nei te turaki i ngā ōhāki i puta i te Kāwanatanga ō mua kia whakaheke iho te putanga atu o ngā paihana patu nei i te taiao me te whakamāmā ake i ngā huarahi e pai ai te tiki atu i te electric vehicles.[Greetings Mr Speaker and everyone here in the House today salutations to you all. I stand to present Te Pāti Māori's aspirations for this bill to demolish the oath set down by the previous Government to decrease the dissemination of pollution on the environment and to ease the way in which we can retrieve electric vehicles.]Te Pāti Māori have challenged the direction and vision of this Government of course. And you know the real question is: what is the vision? The vision the direction that the Government is intending for us. It's clear that the direction of this Government is towards profit and capitalism. So whilst their vision is fine we must now ask ourselves: profit capitalism—but at what cost and to what expense?He mārakerake te kite atu ko te taiao me te whenua te utu—so right now it is evident to see that it is te taiao our environment and the land that will bear the brunt of the cost. The amendment to this bill is reflective of a Government that prioritises profit over the environment. Since the beginning of this Government's term in Parliament we have seen the prioritisation of profit across various bills including the repeal of the regional fuel tax and the current Resource Management Act amendment bill.I now stand to discuss the road-user charges amendments. Let me remind the House and in particular tēnei taha—and particularly the members opposite us—that the bill was introduced as an incentive—an incentive—not a disincentive; an incentive for our communities to transition from vehicles reliant on fossil fuels to electric vehicles instead. By making it cheaper for an electric vehicle user to use our roads it was made more accessible and in essence a legitimate option for our people to consider—something that would most likely have missed the consideration of our colleagues across the room.By introducing road-user charges we make it less appealing and less realistic for people when faced with the choice between vehicles that run on unsustainable fuel sources and vehicles that run from a renewable energy source. This is a conversation that for us for Māori we often don't get the chance to engage with. Conversations around electric vehicles or renewable energy and the chance to have our own electric vehicles is often exclusive of our communities—our communities that live rurally on their whenua by their marae or urban communities that often survive and disconnect from their whenua their marae and their iwi and hapū bases. We as Māori are left out yet again or indeed cut out. So I stand here to enter into the conversation to prove to our people that we have every right to be here and that while these kaupapa seem far away from our te ao Māori our reality all of these bills in fact do impact us do impact our people. They work as ways to segregate us from the rest.So when we consider the amendment to this bill in the context of climate change which we must do—we must consider our climate and the impact we as a nation have on our whenua—it is clear that previous efforts made to support the reduction in emissions to create accessibility to clean technology and create sustainable public and private transport are not prioritised by the current Government. Inā kē te wero. [That indeed is the challenge.]I question those sitting on the other side of the House: how will the emissions reduction plan the national adaptation plan the carbon-neutral Government programme the Climate Emergency Response Fund be impacted by this change? Again another vision another amendment to another bill where profit is prioritised at the expense of te taiao and the whenua.When we actually look to the so-called profit and ineffective planning and management from the current Government it has forced them into a position where a $24 million pothole in their Budget has meant that those who use electric vehicles will have to foot the bill. I'm sure that over the short time the Government has been in term they've struggled to deliver their promises when they realise that repealing and amending all of these bills and promising tax cuts to the people has only meant that the money lost from that particular revenue stream will now have to be sourced elsewhere.Nā ka taka te utu ki te marea ā ko te ao Māori ka pani ki waho.[And so the cost will fall on the people and the Māori culture will be cast out.]