Hughes Darren: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hughes Darren: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 Labour will be supporting the third reading of the Road User Charges Amendment Bill— 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: How’s your landlady? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: I am sorry? 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: How’s your landlady? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Out of all the choices of people I would much rather have her than some other people I know in terms of kindness and things like that. 
We are in support of this bill— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Seen the Harry Potter movies? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: What was that Maurice? I would have thought National members would be the last members to raise anything to do with housing this week. I am amazed they want to do that. All it shows is that there is a lot of disloyalty over there at the present time. 
This bill is in the name of the Minister of Transport the Hon Steven Joyce and who is the No. 1 beneficiary of Bill English’s problems this week? It is Steven Joyce. So is it not interesting that all those members are climbing over one another to praise Steven Joyce as he marches towards the deputy prime ministership and the finance portfolio in this country? That was a nasty little dig by Paula Bennett to try to get one over Bill English in order to grease up to Steven Joyce as she looks for further promotion within the Government. I am very disappointed that she would do something like that; I think it is a real black mark against her name in that particular regard. 
The third reading of this bill is welcomed by Labour although it is very timid legislation. Through the Committee stage we highlighted the concerns we had that the Minister and the Government have not used the chance of this legislation to be far bolder and show a little bit more vision with regard to the development of light electric motor vehicles in New Zealand. The bill as the previous speaker said has two parts: the first covers the exemption for light electric motor vehicles from road-user charges and the second covers the period in which road-user charges may be purchased after the Government has announced an increase in those fees—and I will come to that point second. In dealing with the exemption for light electric motor vehicles I say that the bill does not go far enough. It is disappointing that it is anticipating only 300 of these vehicles being on the road between now and 2013. 
One of the issues that the Minister would not address in the Committee stage was why the opportunity was not taken to set a bolder target for those vehicles to be on our roads in order to send a very clear signal from Government that it was showing the leadership required to get a diversity of vehicles fuelled by different means through our motor vehicle fleet. I think that is a missed opportunity and many questions were put to the Minister that he did not answer. For example he was asked why a percentage figure of our fleet was not set rather than a number. When we consider how many cars each family has we realise that 300 cars is a very very small number indeed; 300 cars would pretty easily cover two or three streets in a small provincial town. But if the Minister had set a percentage figure even one as low as 1 percent that would have been a chance for the country to see how serious the Government was for light electric motor vehicles to be developed. 
Light electric motor vehicles are such a great idea and reinforce all the work that the previous Government had done around the sustainability agenda to make sure that the single biggest area for most families in terms of fossil fuel emissions—that is people’s participation in the transport sector—could be covered. For many families who think about how they can make a real difference to climate change it will be in the area of transport that they are able to make the biggest difference to their emissions. Electric cars are obviously one way in which that could happen. We have to increase the proportion of these vehicles in our fleet on the roads. Combining both a greater quantity and the fact that New Zealand has such a strong supply of renewable energy would have brought together those great ideas. I hope that will happen with this bill and that we will have 300 of these cars between now and 4 years’ time but I fear that the wrong signals are being given or that the signals are not being given strongly enough with the passage of this bill here today. We know that cars that rely on oil engines or petrol and need to be filled up at the gas station are harmful sources of fuel because they are non-renewable sources and emissions from cars are something that we are all concerned about. By flipping over to electric vehicles we see that both of those things can be changed. 
I want to pick up on a point made by National member the Hon Tau Henare yesterday. He referred to a documentary called  
Who Killed the Electric Car? 
. In politics it is very easy to have conspiracy theories put to members or to the community about how things can be affected but I think that documentary clearly showed that not only Governments but corporations as well can send the wrong signals by the decisions they make. One thing that reminds me of that point is the style shape and design of the cars that were chosen in order to make them unattractive to consumers. A very deliberate decision was made to try to limit sales of that particular type of vehicle. I believe that the Government has a role to play in this area that can be quite influential and I encourage it to take up that role in a stronger way. 
We know that at the moment the availability of these cars in our market is currently very very low. The purchase price is around double the cost of what a conventional vehicle would be and that puts them out of the reach of many many working families particularly those who are facing harder times as unemployment rises at a seemingly unstoppable rate. Today it is at 6 percent of our labour market. Global manufacturers have not seen New Zealand as a priority to send cars down to because they have not seen a market that is ready and willing to go. That is the tragedy of the bill. 
The role of Government is to remove barriers. This bill partly does that and that is why Labour is voting for it. We offer the Government congratulations on that part but so often within this area of sustainability and climate change we are not seeing the Government being bold enough which is what our country needs. New Zealand relies so heavily on a stable climate. Often the people who stand to lose the most from climate change are themselves the most reluctant to make a change but I think it is the role of Parliament and the Government to look at that. I point the Government’s attention as I did during the second reading to Denmark. It has outlined a huge programme to try to kick-start a proper electric motor vehicle fleet a US$135 million plan to try to get that going and the New Zealand Government should be trying to focus on that as strongly as it can. 
Finally I turn to the area of road-user charges that the bill contains in its second part. The previous Government ordered a review of road-user charges because there are a number of legitimate questions in this area around fairness where costs should fall and the emerging types of vehicles that have environmental efficiency. We have just been discussing electric vehicles and they are of course covered by the bill but there are also diesel-powered sedans and light diesel vehicles. They are becoming more and more popular on the consumer market. How those are all treated is a subject of some considerable debate and angst within the transport industry. The review was set up last year to try to come up with some potential options or solutions in that respect. I certainly welcomed that review. 
The review came out of a period when the National Party had been very very critical of an increase in those road-user charges. There was 18 years between increases in the fees and when the increases were finally put forward we saw the then National transport spokesperson Maurice Williamson back when he was alive politically lead a charge of National MPs around the country. They said that those were the most terrible disgraceful increases they had ever seen and that it was terrible that the Labour Government had raised road-user charges. Yet nowhere in this debate have National members got up and said that they believe road-user charges should be lowered to the level they were last year. I have been intrigued by that because I thought that last year’s high principle would have been this year’s delivery. I thought that National members were so genuine in their outrage last year that they would have reduced those road-user charges. But—surprise surprise—they have not done that. I would love to know from the next speaker why all of a sudden they believe that the road-user charges are now at an appropriate level when last year those members joined protests all around the country because the charges were so outrageous. Equally the cost of diesel has fallen since that time— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: No we just joined the protest because it was anti-Labour! 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Oh so the member says that he joined the protest only because it was anti-Labour. I hope that the members of the trucking industry who listened to the Hon Tau Henare when he turned up realise now that maybe he did not really believe what he was saying. That is a very interesting revelation. When he gives speeches they are more about his political party view in terms of the Government of the day than about the substance of what he is saying around that. 
We know that the money collected in road-user charges goes to the National Land Transport Fund. We use that fund to build our roads and to try to improve our infrastructure in respect of rail and so many other things we need in order to get New Zealand moving. When the Government talks about the seven roads of national significance they are paid for out of the National Land Transport Fund.