King Annette: Road User Charges Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
King Annette: Road User Charges Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:369. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 Labour supports the Road User Charges Bill with some reservations. But before I get on to that I did listen with some interest to Jami-Lee Ross’ contribution. Mr Ross that was the first time I have heard you speak actually and I thought you made some very interesting points particularly about transport overall and the importance of transport on the economic and social well-being of New Zealand. That is why we on this side of the House have always supported a balanced transport policy. We do not believe that transport has to be about just tarmac and road building. We believe and we have for a long time that it is not also only about cycling and walking but it is actually about utilising all the modes of transport including road transport sea transport air and rail for the best economic benefit of this country.  
So when we were in Government we set out to have a fair funding system for roading and transport in New Zealand and it was a Labour Government that brought in hypothecation of all funding for roading which included road-user charges excise duty and registration into a National Land Transport Fund—something the previous Government had refused to do for many many years—which enables us now to have a much fairer approach to funding transport in New Zealand. But if anyone should know about a road-user charges system and getting a fairer road-user charges system in place it probably should be a former Minister of Transport who actually confronted many truckies in 2008 when in fact I increased the road-user charges for truckies in this country. So I have been very interested in the progress of this bill.  
The former Minister of Transport Steven Joyce called this bill a “fairer road-user charges system for everybody” bill but I wondered why there were people who were upset about it if that was the case. It seemed to me there was a fair amount of spin over substance in Mr Joyce’s comments in that respect.  
In July 2008 as the Minister of Transport I increased road-user charges—the second increase they had had since 1989. So in 19 years road-user charges went up twice—2 years in a row—and I put them up. That was for vehicles over 6 tonnes. And what happened? The truck operators took to the road in protest. So I said: “What I want is a fairer system one where all the road-user operators paid their fair share and they got their fair share.” But they went to protest over two issues. One was the amount of increase that was going to be charged to them. In fact it was an extra $32 a year for a small diesel car with an average mileage and for a typical 5-tonne truck— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: They weren’t small diesel cars in the Octagon protesting. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Just listen and you might learn something Mr Woodhouse. For a typical 5-tonne truck it was $53 a year and for a 23-tonne truck which is capable of carrying quite a lot of freight it was $198 a year the reason being that diesel is not subject to any taxation apart from less than half a cent per litre compared with 42.524c a litre for a car. So I wanted a balanced and fair system.  
The second reason they protested at that time was that they did not get enough notice there was going to be an increase. The year before I had given 3 days’ notice that there was going to be an increase in road-user charges. What happened? Many operators went out and pre-purchased road-user charges at the old rate costing the Government $17 million. So there was a protest.  
I set up a working party in conjunction with the industry to look at the formula we could have for setting road-user charges for heavy vehicles and to put in place legislation to address the notice issue. We put on to that committee three people with expertise and knowledge and they were to report back in March 2009. We are almost in March 2012 and we have legislation finally going through this House that is going to in two respects—and particularly in one particular effect—have a big impact on a high percentage of trucking firms. But what exactly that impact is going to be is at this stage still secret. Nobody knows what the figures are; they have not been divulged.  
The question I am wanting to ask is whether the truck operators will protest again because they will have a reason to this time. Rather than come up with a system that addresses the notice period under this bill the charges will be set by regulation by the Minister without public debate. No final numbers will be known before this bill becomes law. The actual charges will be set at a later date. It is seen to be a pretty complicated process and it could have legal challenges and lead to cost and delay.  
One of the submissions to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee pointed out that clause 79 provides for 42 days’ notification of regulations specifying the changes but there is no process for consultation so I cannot see that there has been any improvement on the issues that were raised in 2008 and what is happening in this bill. You see the Road Transport Forum demanded consultation and that is what I thought was going to happen in this bill. I cannot see in it how this is occurring.  
Perhaps I could remind the members what was said at the time when I in fact increased road-user charges and what the National Party said about it. It said it was sneaky to raise road-user charges without warning but that is what is going to happen in this legislation. It said it would pile huge costs on people but people are not going to know what those increases are going to be. Bill English went so far as to say that we changed things in the dead of night that we had promised to consult on it and that there should have been consultation. Where in this bill now and when it is passed is there going to be consultation before road-user charges are increased?  
That was the basis of the protest in 2008 so it will be interesting to see whether Tony Friedlander comes out of retirement and asks the truckies to once again protest now against a National Government. After all Tony Friedlander was a former National Party member of Parliament. I wonder whether he has the same strength of feeling against what is happening now as against what happened when we were in Government.  
The second major issue that has been protested against is the change moving from nominated weight to gross weights for calculating road-user charges. Well what does all that mean? To the people listening out there it does not mean an awful lot but at present road-user charges are based on distance travelled and weight carried and the carrier has to estimate in advance the actual gross weight to be carried. For example—and I have never forgotten this example which was told to me by Fonterra way back in the time when I was Minister of Transport—Fonterra’s trucks can carry 50 tonnes of milk. It is actually allowed to carry only 44 tonnes so it does not fill its trucks to their full weight. But it is actually going to be charged for carrying a 50-tonne weight. That is what its maximum allowable weight would be. So Fonterra has opposed this bill. It has said that it fails to do what it has said it was going to do.  
Operators will now be deemed to be carrying the maximum permissible load on the road at all times and that is going to put a huge hike on the smaller operators. Now I know it suits some of the bigger operators. They are the members of the Road Transport Forum. Some of them were very good at avoiding road-user charges. But it is not going to help many of the smaller truck operators. One operator said there would be an additional average cost of $18000 per vehicle for him totalling an extra $137000 per year.  
So I am saying there should be a protest about these changes by this Government if people were really concerned about changes that have been made in the past and are wanting a fairer system. Also how it can be—as is much claimed by this Government—a fiscally neutral change when those who carry lighter loads are going to be disadvantaged? I think that the Government missed a very good opportunity to make it fairer.