Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well it is a pleasure to speak on the Fuel Industry Bill. It's a difficult time I understand for the Greens whose default position is to actually want fuel to be more expensive and as expensive as possible. But this bill of course seeks to do the opposite; to in fact introduce enough competition through the terminal gate price that that would allow competition in another sector part of the market. Actually there is plenty of competition there now and certainly in the retailers. On my patch through my electorate the significant difference is in fuel prices depending on where you go as to how remote you are when you're—not you Madam Speaker but myself when I'm driving through the electorate. The price does vary quite considerably but we certainly have a number of Nelson Petroleum Distributors (NPDs) that have been put in in the last few years and more to come and that has driven the price of fuel down through that competition. But the Greens are having difficulty with this one. I know this is a difficult time for them anyway given they've had to cancel their campaign launch due to lack of interest. But maybe the fuel price going up overnight with excise taxes might make them feel a little better. But I do note this morning that the Road Transport Forum made some comments about the increase in road-user charges which is going to be quite significant. This is why fuel prices are important because it does go right through to the consumer. I note this morning that they say experience from the 2008 economic downturn indicates road wear is going to decrease and we know that. So these road-user charges and excise taxes that are just going up at the moment are there to cover the costs of fixing the roads. But actually during this period we've had a drop of about 60 to 70 percent in truck traffic during the lockdown. So the road wear will have gone down significantly. So the whole industry is feeling that. We're in a difficult time now. All of those prices go directly on to the costs of fuel. But of course they say they don't care about that. They aren't worried about that. They think somehow it's going to be magicked up by a business. Obviously they don't understand how pricing and markets work. That probably is what's driven this because quite clearly even in the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs' own Cabinet paper it states that competition is emerging quite strongly in the fuel markets. I think that we see that all the time. But we see that Allied Petroleum have opened 16 new fuel stations in the South Island and NPD—21. So it's a significant number of new operators in the market and that has driven down the price. It's a very complicated market and it's quite interesting to note my colleague Jonathan Young saying last night that actually the industry has been trying to explain it to the Commerce Commission who simply didn't understand how the markets work. It is highly complicated and maybe with the advent of electric cars that will start to sort out that fuel market as time goes on as it faces competition from electric vehicles (EVs). But of course that's going to be a long time if ever to get right through to the heavy transport industry which is really reliant on liquid fuels. I think for the foreseeable future it will be.We have seen quite a bit of money and some of that money from those taxes go towards a pipe dream that was light rail and rail but heavy rail—nearly everything that a consumer touches will have been on the back of a truck at some point. That's how stuff is delivered around New Zealand. It's interesting to note that since the lockdown actually the profile of freight has changed completely because so much of the stuff that we all buy is now being bought online and that has far more touch points through the chain than the normal freight and goods and services that we would normally purchase through the normal links through the chain stores and so on. It's going now by courier much more often. So they are absolutely impacted by fuel and fuel costs. So we're going to see how this goes through the Finance and Expenditure Committee. It is rushed yet again. I remember in the last term that the Green Party railed about urgency on everything and said it had to be an absolute emergency to have urgency—I think they were the terms that they used. But their principles—they've gone out the window. [Interruption] Yeah. I don't know what their principles are but they are certainly not what they were in the first term. But of course we do know that principles are only principles when they're tested. Otherwise they are just ideals and clearly their ideals don't have any real commitment to them. They gave them away quite quickly for the baubles of power. So with that I commend this in a qualified sense to the House. Thank you.