Fenton Darien: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:656;Page:5487] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I really hesitate to follow that contribution by Paul Quinn. I am not sure whether anything I have ever heard in this House could possibly match it—apart from David Bennett’s contribution which I know is to come. David Bennett will be as considered as he always is as the excellent chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I know he will make a considered and proper contribution on Part 2 of the Road User Charges Amendment Bill. 
Part 2 relates to road-user charges and follows on from Labour’s initiation of a review last year. I will go over some of the things that people have said about what happened last year. Labour announced an increase in road-user charges and we saw a politically motivated and self-interested action by truck drivers at a time when there were unprecedented price rises in the international costs of petrol and diesel. Everybody was hurting; everybody was paying more for petrol at that time. We put up the road-user charges last year without notice because when we increased them the year before notice was given which resulted in a great deal of purchasing of road-user charge certificates. A large amount of Crown revenue was lost through that forward purchasing. 
After the truck driver protest the previous Minister of Transport the Hon Annette King met with the head of the Road Transport Forum the Hon Tony Friedlander who said that the forum would work with the Government to put in place a regime that was fair to the Government but also fair to the forum. So there is no problem with that. 
The objective of Labour’s review was to increase road-user charges without a great loss of revenue to the Crown but with sufficient notice given in particular to truckies who were purchasing the road-user charge certificates. Part 2 of the bill addresses what came out of the inquiry that Minister King set up and it was announced by the Minister of Transport the Hon Steven Joyce in May this year. 
When Labour instigated the review there had not been a review for around 18 years. During that period the ratio of trucks to cars had changed enormously as had the weights being carried by those trucks. That meant that a great inequity had grown between trucking firms and private motorists over who was paying for road maintenance. Motorists were subsidising truckers. Heavy trucks causing substantial damage were not paying their fair share. So the Labour-led Government after announcing the working party to examine the formula for the road-user charges for heavy vehicles also intended to amend the Road User Charges Act for vehicles weighing more than 3.5 tonnes in order to restrict the period of time in which pre-purchased licences could continue to be used after an increase in road-user charges. 
The purpose of the proposed amendment was to allow the Government to give reasonable notice of increases and that is exactly what the bill does. The bill is the outcome of everything Labour planned to do after we had been through a very reasonable review and a proper collaborative process. The truth is that Labour did the work on the bill. We took a lot of flack on the bill as always but we did the work on it and here we are passing it. 
The bottom line for Labour in this whole thing is that a fair share of all road-user charges must go towards maintaining our roads building new roads and improving public transport. As I said a working party reported back to Steven Joyce. Guess what? The key recommendation was that the current road-user charges system which is unique in the world be retained with some suggested changes around the edges. The working party recommended that 6 weeks’ notice be given for any increases in road-user charge rates. The result is the bill as I have said which provides for 42 days’ notice. It also provides a mechanism to minimise the impact of pre-purchasing. 
I do not want to dwell on the past but I know that some speakers on the other side of the Chamber want to talk about what happened last year. We are interested in the bill and in the solution that Labour worked for along with the Road Transport Forum. I observe that when National is in the driving seat there are plenty of protests. Hey we had one yesterday outside Parliament did we not? 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: What was that about? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: It was about adult and community education funding. Where was the Minister for Tertiary Education? She was inside. A couple of weeks ago there was another protest outside Parliament which was about the Government ditching pay and employment equity. There will be another protest about school support staff who have been offered a zero percent pay rise on Friday this week in Auckland.