Fenton Darien: Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:13039. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour): How long was that speech?Dr Rajen Prasad: Two minutes.DARIEN FENTON: Two minutes? OK 2 minutes from the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s quite a long one for Bennett.DARIEN FENTON: It is quite a long one really. I think he needs to be really careful about showing his commitment to what he said was a very important bill in this House the Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill. The truth about this bill is that it would not be in the House if the National Government had not stuffed it up in the first place. That is the truth about the Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill. That is the truth and I agree with my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway who said that it is entirely appropriate that the Minister Simon Bridges was introducing this first reading on behalf of Gerry Brownlee—Hon Trevor Mallard: He didn’t say that though.DARIEN FENTON: No I know he did not say that and that is a problem too actually. That is a problem. He introduced it—this is not a man known for attention to detail. This is not a man known for attention to detail. This is a Minister who has already had to come back to the House on several bills and make corrections and drive through changes at the last possible minute.What happened with this bill was that this was a very very controversial bill at the time that it went through the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—Hon Tau Henare: Not even.DARIEN FENTON: Well Tau Henare was not there. It was a controversial bill and in fact there were a number of transport providers who were very very upset about what the Government was doing. There was even a little bit of a campaign online as I recall. What happened with the bill was that the Government was given advice by its friends in the trucking industry and it ignored it. It ignored it. It was given advice by its friends in the agriculture industry and it ignored that advice as well. So what happened? The bill got referred to the Regulations Review Committee and my colleague Maryan Street will talk with great erudition about exactly what happened at the Regulations Review Committee. But the truth is that it would never have been necessary for this bill to go to the Regulations Review Committee and come back as yet another bill on road-user charges if the Government if the Minister if the Associate Minister and if the National Party members had done their jobs properly in the first place.I will talk just briefly about what the purpose of the bill is. It proposes to amend the Road User Charges Act and we have as I said quite recently in this House actually passed a bill about road-user charges. I want to divert just for a minute to remind theHouse that actually going back Labour was very supportive of measures to reduce road-user charges evasion. Going right back to 2008 remember there was a huge mass protest from the truckies and the then Minister of Transport Annette King was involved in that and then the transport industry after we actually introduced road-user charges or increases. It was used as a political tool by the National Party.Hon Simon Bridges: What year was that?DARIEN FENTON: That was 2008 but we do not forget that. We do not forget that. And I was very pleased when the Road User Charges Bill came into Parliament to see that actually the truckies were just as annoyed with the National Government. In fact there were online petitions and other things. They were just as annoyed with the National Government apart from its friends in the Road Transport Forum which does not represent its members and does not listen to what they are saying.But we on this side of the House were the instigators. We were the people who supported road-user charges and we also supported this bill the original Road User Charges Amendment Bill brought forward by this National Government. We supported that too even though we had concerns and we were supporting the people who were concerned about it at the time. As I said what happened was that the Government did not listen. So here we are in urgency wasting our time on doing a bill that will actually exempt fast tractors. That is what this bill is going to do. It is going to exempt fast tractors—that is tractors operated over 40 kilometres per hour on the road—from road-user charges and subject them to an annual charge. I just find that really interesting that the select committee and the Ministers could not get the definition of a fast tractor right at the time. Actually a fast tractor according to the regulatory impact statement glossary is “a tractor that is operated over 40 kilometres per hour on road (as opposed to being capable of speeds in excess of 40 kilometres per hour).” That is what a fast tractor is. And “For the purposes of the RUC system a tractor is defined as being a motor vehicle designed and constructed and not merely adapted for traction and powering implements.” So that is the substance of this bill. That is what this bill is about. This bill is about fast tractors as opposed to slow tractors.Dr Megan Woods: They’re a menace.DARIEN FENTON: They are a menace? You think they are a menace? Fast tractors are a menace? But anyway that is the purpose of the bill and this bill will amend the Act to provide for fast tractors.I am really looking forward to the select committee process and maybe we will have a demonstration at the select committee of a fast tractor compared with a slow one.Dr Megan Woods: The steps of Parliament.DARIEN FENTON: Oh a tractor coming up the steps of Parliament—that is right. We could have that as well. In fact it might be a tractor coming up the steps of Parliament opposing this bill actually opposing the National Government. That would be very interesting.Apparently there are seven minor technical amendments to the Road User Charges Act that will improve operation of the road-user charges system. What I do know about this bill and the original bill is that there is still a residue of resentment about this from trucking operators. They still do not believe that the original Road User Charges Amendment Bill which this Government brought in was fair. They are still not convinced by it and I think it is a demonstration of the fact that the Government did not do its job properly in the first place. It is a demonstration by having to have this bill back in Parliament. According to the explanatory note “Most aspects of the new system are working well but there is a need to correct some minor anomalies with the RUC Act that affect a small number of vehicles and their owners.” Why could we not do the job in the select committee of correcting some minor anomalies with the Road UserCharges Act that affect a small number of vehicles and their owners? Why could that work not be done? As I say it is due to a lack of attention to detail from this Government and from the new Minister Simon Bridges who has picked up from and is following his elders his more senior Ministers. He is following their tradition of not doing the job properly of not paying attention to detail of not listening to people of just being lazy and of sitting in select committees and taking the advice of people instead of listening to the people on the ground just as he is doing with the Employment Relations Amendment Bill actually—just as he is doing with that just as David Bennett is doing too and just as the other members on the select committee are doing.Actually we do not need this work in the select committee. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee is very very busy. It has 15000 submissions to take note of on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. It also has the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill. It has major health and safety legislation in front of it. We do not need this. This did not need to happen—this did not need to happen. If only the Ministers and the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee had done their jobs properly we would not be rushing through in urgency the first reading of the Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill which is going to be dealing with fast tractors. Thank you.