O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Labour): Mr Speaker thank you very much. It's an honour to speak on this important piece of legislation. Transport across our big country for everyone—individuals or commerce—is vitally important. I wasn't on the select committee but I want to thank my colleagues who arguably have saved the day actually particularly for plug-in hybrid vehicles. Can I just go back a couple of steps? I'll confess that as someone who drives probably 60000 to 70000 kilometres a year owns a truck that probably creates the potholes rides a motorbike that suffers when you hit the potholes and has a car somewhere in the middle there our roading system is in a dire situation in large part because we bought heavier trucks—the last National Government put heavier trucks on the road—and then froze the funding for maintenance and improvements. So when we came into Government we had a big challenge of increasing substantially the funding for roading and indeed we did do that. As was pointed out before by the Minister: in 2009 the National Government saw the need for electric vehicles and so brought in some—well what they thought were exemptions of course for electric vehicles. The idea was that we'd have a transition through to more electric vehicles in our fleet—in fact the target being 2 percent. In fact that only started to occur when the Labour Government brought in incentives—or the Labour coalition Government when New Zealand First had some sense—when we brought in the Clean Car Discount that did provide a direct incentive for people to buy Teslas. Indeed the Prime Minister took up that opportunity—and because as we know there's market failure through our economy and if we're wanting to transition forward then we have to provide the incentives. This piece of legislation indeed moves that forward. It was going to park the incentives because at a 30 percent discount for plug-in hybrid vehicles they would have been paying more than the equivalent petrol vehicle. That anomaly which would have discouraged people from the transition was addressed by my colleague who brought in an amendment which the Minister in his wisdom is going to carry through. So thank you very much to members on the committee.If I go back to Labour in Government we did see this anomaly and this challenge of how we would get vehicles that clearly are using the road to contribute to road maintenance. So Waka Kotahi who I think in my personal experience is not the best Government organisation—I've seen over many many years them in their different forms come to Government with advice much of it flawed in my view. They have changed systems. We have a road system that's not safe a road system that is not maintained and a road system in which consecutive Ministers have taken advice from Waka Kotahi. I hope this current Minister is going to shake them up because I don't believe they've provided the right advice on driver licensing and as I say on road safety and many other things. And I'm not sure that their advice on road-user charges (RUC) is the fairest way across the board to provide direct contribution to road maintenance or is the right way forward.As a truck owner you can go online and you can pay road-user charges and you'll get a ticket in the mail and then you put it on your windscreen. It's all OK and many diesel vehicle owners would know that system. But if we're going to apply that across the whole fleet it is going to be in my view a bit of an administrative challenge. That's one of the things that is being looked at—and I'm sure the Minister might come to it—so I'm just putting on the record that what we're doing here in making adjustments for the right reasons and finally having the incentives in place for a decarbonised lower-emissions fleet which we all agree is necessary—I hope that we're not going to bring in an administrative system that becomes another challenge for the average Kiwi.If you run a fleet of trucks you'll have a sound administrative system. Even if you run a couple of trucks or you run one truck you kind of put up with the road-user charges application system. It's not that complex but it is none the less an administrative requirement. For the average Kiwi to transition from a petrol vehicle where every time you fill up you pay your excise into one of having to actively apply for road-user charges then I think there may be some challenges. Now there's an electronic alternative. And the question I'd ask of the Minister or of Waka Kotahi as we move forward is: what's the cost of that system relative to the benefits and is there an alternative? Because I think that the Minister of Transport will come back to this House in this Government and propose that road-user charges go up. They've said there will be no extra taxes or charges. Well I don't believe them. I've seen too many false statements on that area so the issue of not only the charges for RUC but then the system of rolling that through the whole fleet is one that we in Labour in Opposition will challenge the Government as they move forward.Can I acknowledge the areas in the bill where there have been exemptions made particularly for rural vehicles. I think that's important particularly for rural vehicles. I think that's important and I'm sure that those people moving out in areas—and obviously there's the evolution in spite of what farmers might have denied of electric vehicles on farm which will be more efficient and more effective as well in many ways to get around the farm. That is an evolution that I think we must also welcome.Can I just say that the other thing that this bill will do is put the Government and our country in a better position to honour its commitments in the EU-New Zealand free-trade agreement which we will be debating after this. Because if the changes hadn't been made by my Labour colleagues to provide a 50 percent discount for RUC for plug-in vehicles and they had left it at 30 percent then in fact we would have been stepping back from what has been in place: an incentive to move to a decarbonised passenger fleet. The EU trade agreement says—and it might be discussed later—that we as two parties to agreement must continue to do our best to reduce emissions across our economies and contribute positively to the Paris accord goals. So they are noble and in fact legal obligations and the adjustments made in this bill mean that we will continue on that track hopefully with people who buy plug-in electric vehicles who now will at least have the same benefit if not a greater benefit than remaining with an electric vehicle.The reality is that human nature likes incentives. We heard it from a couple of the Ministers there that the farmers want incentives they don't want to be driven by regulation. Some would call it subsidies I guess and subsidies and incentives are part of human nature. What we're doing in this piece of legislation here is shifting the obligation to pay for your use on the roads and arguably your impact on the roads although in my view that still has to be properly assessed. But electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles do clearly contribute to some impact on the roads and they do have to pay through RUC but the plug-in hybrid vehicles will pay at the appropriate level with still a little incentive to move in that direction.This is an important piece of legislation. It's one step down the track to a fairer system of paying for our highway network. But if this coalition Government did as its previous National Government did—that is move to a philosophy of sweat the assets and minimise the investment in road maintenance safety upgrades and road improvements—then we'll be left when they exit office with the same dilemma we faced in 2017 when we came in and that is the need to significantly increase the funding for our roading networks and for alternative methods of transport including rail cycling walking and just getting around our country. We did a good job. We moved us forward.This issue of RUC or the issue of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids and how they contribute is now being addressed through this legislation improved dramatically by the simple rebalance of the discount rate for plug-in hybrid vehicles. So thank you to my colleagues thank you to the Labour Party and their commitment on the select committee. We in Labour support this bill through the House. Kia ora.