Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou te Whare. There are many events happening right now in the world that are directly relevant to this legislation and the repeal of this legislation. The Conference of Parties at the UN has made an agreement and made it very clear that we have to transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. The wording in that agreement is not as strong as it should be because there's still too many vested interests—in some cases controlling States like the State hosting it—who want to carry on burning fossil fuels as long as possible.But our children are relying on us to be responsible. Our children are relying on us to take the steps that we can take now because they will not be able to take them in the future; it will be too late. If we don't radically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions it will not be possible to adapt to a future in a world where we have increasing storms and droughts and floods. It will affect food prices it will affect food production it will affect security of people right around the world. It's already affecting geopolitical stability in many parts of the world. I don't know if the members in the new National - ACT - New Zealand First Government realise just how serious and urgent the situation is.In truth the Clean Car Discount should have been brought in 20 years ago. If it had been brought in 20 years ago we would be far more advanced in terms of having a zero-emissions fleet that would allow people to move around our country without having to rely on fossil fuels. And we would directly be benefiting from that because we'd be spending less money on imported oil petrol and diesel to power our vehicles.The truth is that this legislation is repealing an incredibly practical positive step that was leading to real change in New Zealand a positive change in terms of reducing emissions of the vehicles coming into the fleet and with it less pollution lower petrol bills. If the Government—the National - ACT - New Zealand First Government—cared one bit for equity they wouldn't be proposing substantial tax cuts for the people who have the most money. They wouldn't be proposing tax breaks for landlords. They wouldn't be proposing or actually undertaking the repeal of fair pay agreements. They don't care about equity. That is a distraction; it's a red herring.The reality is this policy works to reduce emissions and that's why you have it in place. If you care about equity we can address that through our tax system and through the public support that we give to people through the way that we invest in our people with our social welfare system our public health system our education system.The policy was addressing a lack that we had of both fuel economy standards and a price incentive at the point of purchase. As I've already made clear and as members will soon see if you don't have the price incentive at the point of purchase you will get less uptake of the low-emissions vehicles and then if you're relying on the emissions trading scheme you will see higher fuel prices and people will have no choice to avoid those higher fuel prices because they've already purchased a vehicle that isn't as fuel-efficient as it could be. So the evidence is that the policy was working really well and I'm proud of the fact that we brought in such a constructive positive policy that did make a real difference to a huge number of New Zealanders and I'm sorry to see that progress not happening.The new National - ACT - New Zealand First Government was elected on a hodgepodge of culture war slogans that were seeking to divide New Zealand rather than constructive positive practical evidence-based policies that will help us address the challenges that we actually have. For those who identify as blue-green I say to you that there was not a better policy in terms of its marginal abatement cost. That is we gained money; New Zealand gained economic benefit from this policy for the carbon emissions reduction.Now the National Party and the ACT Party and the New Zealand First Party do not want agriculture to do anything to reduce emissions and yet at the same time they're not doing anything for transport to reduce emissions. You would think for parties that believe that their entire strategy is electrification of cars rather than actually making public transport work in our towns and cities and making active transport possible and making it possible for people to undertake the many many short trips in our urban areas on foot by bike by e-scooter by whatever means they choose that doesn't happen to be in a car—they are car zealots. They're obsessed with forcing New Zealanders to use cars for every single trip and we see that through everything.James Meager: That's choice.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: No that's not choice. It's the opposite of choice I say to the member. It is the opposite of choice. If people don't have the ability to walk cycle or take public transport they don't have a choice. National wants to take away people's choice and force them into cars which they have to spend thousands of dollars a year to run and maintain. But see this is the difficulty in dealing—they're so far down the rabbit hole so out of touch with reality that this new dinosaur Government doesn't understand that decades of Government policy have led to a situation where New Zealanders have no choice but to use a car. The whole point that the Green Party has constantly brought here is that if you actually invest in the alternatives to using a car—like the top five best countries in the world for roads that the National Party liked to cite before the election until they realised all of those places were implementing Green-style transport and urban development policies and that's why they're such good countries for people to drive cars in. We don't have the option for people to use public transport because subsequent Governments have failed to invest in it and that has taken away people's choice to get around without a car. So their entire strategy now is electrification of cars and yet they're taking away the one policy that was actually supporting and making it easier for New Zealanders to get into electric cars. The mind boggles.But the reality is—and I know they must be really high on the success of the election and feeling good with all their repeals—that at some point this Government is going to have to figure out how to actually solve the problem. The Prime Minister says he's committed to the carbon budgets. He's committed to achieving them and yet all of the evidence we've received from the Climate Change Commission and the Ministry of Transport says that in order to achieve those carbon budgets we need a price signal at the point of purchase of vehicles so that people can find it easier to get into more electric vehicles. And that's what the Clean Car Discount was. It was a price incentive at the point of purchase and import into the country. Because once you've already purchased the vehicle having the price incentive on a bit of fuel doesn't work to influence the cars that are coming into the country.I have done my best to share the evidence to share the rationale to explain to the members in the Government how they had an opportunity to do something that was good for the climate that was good for people and that people would have supported and the saddest thing for me is that they chose to make people feel bad about contributing to the Clean Car Discount when people could have felt good about it. I think New Zealanders do want to do the right thing. They want to be part of the solution and if they—[Interruption] And they absolutely had the ability to buy the high-polluting vehicles. They had that ability.They can also continue to contribute to cleaning up the other vehicles on the road. Because if they need that ute or if they need that Range Rover that $150000 Range Rover—if they need that to drop the kids off in Remuera and you know then if that's what they need—and I respect that's their need—then it's fair to ask those people buying brand-new Range Rovers to contribute something to getting more zero-emissions cars on the road. Because we won't be able to solve the climate crisis as individuals; we will do it together. We will do it by working together. People can feel proud of their contribution to the stunning increase in zero- and low-emissions vehicles that we've seen over the past two years. I want to give a shoutout—of course many of the members of the Government including the Prime Minister and a few senior Ministers their families took the rebate for their electric vehicles. But then now they've repealed it so other people can't access that benefit which is another stunning example of hypocrisy from this Government.But people should feel good about the increase that we've had to electric vehicles on the road and if they paid a little bit more for their high-emissions vehicle they can know they were part of the solution and they were for a brief time part of a policy that actually radically reduced the average emissions of the vehicles coming into the New Zealand fleet.We will hold the Government to account as we see what the consequences of repealing this are but no matter what they can't take away the two megatonne of carbon emissions that we saved. They can't take away the fact that we kickstarted in a big way the rush to electric vehicles and electrification. They will slow it down but they can't take it away.I just want to finally shout out to the Hon Michael Wood who brought this policy through who listened to the evidence even though the Labour Party hadn't campaigned on the policy. He listened to the officials and said we have to have this price incentive and he brought the policy in. So good on the Hon Michael Wood for doing that and sticking to his guns. The Green Party will continue to promote the positive practical solutions that our country needs to address the real challenges.