Hipkins Chris: Road User Charges Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hipkins Chris: Road User Charges Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:373. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 A win is a win according to Melissa Lee. I have a question for her: how would she know? How would she know after her stunning results in two elections: a by-election and then a general election in Mt Albert? David Shearer wakes up every morning and he thanks God for Melissa Lee. He is absolutely delighted. One of the best things that ever happened to David Shearer was having Melissa Lee put up against him in the Mt Albert by-election.  
I want to know from Melissa Lee though about road-user charges. How many of those road-user charges are for the people speeding through Mount Albert on their way from South Auckland through to the North Shore? I want to know how many of those road-user charges are for the people who are trying to avoid all those criminals as they speed through on that new Waterview Connection which she wanted to avoid building.  
Jami-Lee Ross 
: Trevor’s a bit slow on his bike. He can’t speed. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Trevor cannot speed. You cannot actually ride a bike on a motorway—sharpen up sharpen up. I am sure he will get there. One does not need road-user charges for a bike yet. I am sure given long enough that that is something the National Government will want to implement.  
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: I think Trevor might be diesel powered.  
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Best not get into what powers Trevor. I have to say though that the wider question for the Government is whether this is it. Here we are in the second week back in the National Government’s 100 days of action following the last election—it has only a few weeks to go—and the best it can come up with is the Road User Charges Bill. This is the economic transformation that we have been waiting for. 
Hon David Parker 
: The 120-point plan. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: And the 20-point plan— 
Hon Members 
: The 120-point plan. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: The 120-point plan. Well it may as well have been only 20 points. I do not think anyone could name the 120 points. Nobody has got any idea what they are. I have not heard National name one but apparently the Road User Charges Bill is one of them. This is what is going to contribute to our massive economic transformation under the second term of a National Government! And things are going to get so much better now that the truckies have to pay more for carting empty truckloads than they used to have to pay! This is what is going to lead to this great transformation: all these extra jobs that are going to be created by the Road User Charges Bill which we are debating in the House tonight.  
And I have to say I agree with some of the drivers of the milk tankers—the people who work for Fonterra—who are going to end up being done over by this bill but I also agree with the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association which is concerned about the massive increase in costs that this is going to lead to for those who have motorhomes. I am interested in the views on this of the Minister of Tourism John Key. I would like to know what he has to say about massively increasing the road-user charges—and thereby the costs—for those tourists who hire motorhomes to travel around the country. I am interested that the Minister of Tourism has not had anything to say on this. He does not really talk about tourism much these days. Perhaps that is because not much has been happening in tourism since he took over doing it.  
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: How’s that cycleway? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: How is that cycleway coming along? In fact perhaps if the Government had done a little bit more on the cycleway we would not be so worried about road-user charges. We might have a few more people in jobs in this country. It never quite turned out to be that though. Of course the cycleway was going to be a big part of the economic transformation agenda as well; it was going to create all those extra jobs. We are still waiting to see those extra jobs eventuating—still waiting. And I suspect in another 2½ years’ time when the next general election rolls around and this Government’s scorecard is put up people will still be waiting for the extra jobs that the Government has been promising. The Road User Charges Bill is certainly not going to create the extra jobs that this Government has been promising. It is just fanciful. A lot of the Government’s bold projections are simply fanciful. 
I also have a question for the Government. In the week that John Key has been talking about modernising public services and having a technological solution to make public services more responsible why are we not seeing evidence of that in the Road User Charges Bill? Because actually by their very definition road-user charges are incredibly arbitrary. You are paying the maximum road-user charges for the entire time that the truck is driving whether it is empty laden full or whatever. Why can we not have a technological solution so that people actually pay for what they use? 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Elegant solution. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: That would be an elegant solution to quote the Prime Minister’s favourite line. That would be a modern public service. That would be something that this Government should be looking into if it is really serious about creating a more responsive Public Service. But of course it is not; what it is interested in doing is making arbitrary cuts and saving money regardless of whether or not that makes public services better or worse. I think New Zealanders can rightly say they would like to see more responsive and more efficient public services. I do not think they are going to get them under this National Government.