Hughes Darren: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hughes Darren: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairman for the chance to participate in the Committee stage of the Road User Charges Amendment Bill. We are considering Part 1 which exempts light electric motor vehicles from paying road-user charges. I know that the Minister of Transport Steven Joyce has a Supplementary Order Paper that relates to this part and I am sure he will give the Committee the courtesy of explaining how that works shortly. 
I know that other members of the Opposition have questions they want to ask the Minister. I see that he is poised and ready and almost signalling to me that I should yield and let him take the opportunity to speak right now. I beg the indulgence of the Minister to complete my speech and then I will ask him a few questions. 
Obviously the Opposition supports Part 1 to try to get an emerging market within our vehicle fleet for light electric motor vehicles. We support it for many of the reasons that the member who spoke previously has outlined. It was very pleasing to hear in Dr Blue’s speech a direct overt reference to fossil fuel emissions. One of the things that has been missing a lot from the language of the Minister when he discusses transport policy is a commitment to battling climate change. So I want to encourage the Government— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Why can’t you be happy? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: I am congratulating the Government! I am congratulating the Government on picking up the sustainability agenda and on seeing that this can so easily fit into the topic of combating climate change. That I think is a very important thing that light electric vehicles can do. So in that sense the Minister has agreed for this effective subsidy to be placed on or to be awarded to light electric motor vehicles as a way of changing the modes of transport within the sector. That in itself is an interesting point. 
Paul Quinn 
: How is that a subsidy? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: I said that it is an effective subsidy because those people do not have to pay road-user charges. So an interventionist approach is being taken by the Government in order for this policy to occur. 
The reason why I think that is a good thing for the Minister to do is that he has been very clear that he does not believe that other sectors of the transport industry should receive subsidies by way of coastal shipping and other alternatives to roading. I hope that what we are seeing here from this initiative he has taken is that he is open to the idea that the Government has a role to play in developing a multimodal approach to transport. Up until now it appears that he has seen just roads as the answer. I have not heard him make reference to subsidies for roads which no doubt exist. 
I would be interested to know from the Minister to what extent he is concerned that if the uptake for electric vehicles in this period is stronger than he has anticipated there will be an effect on the National Land Transport Fund. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: It would have to be a very big uptake. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: The Minister should be more optimistic perhaps than he is being so far to date. Obviously the number of cars we are talking about is very very small. He has set a very timid goal of only 300 cars. I would be interested to know his thinking behind that and whether he considered other options that would maybe run into the thousands. 
The explanatory note of the bill refers to a point when 1 percent of the vehicle fleet is electric as an option for exemption from road-user charges in terms of electric motor vehicles. I wonder why the Minister did not go down that path and choose that as a target in order to send a very strong signal not only to consumers but also to potential manufacturers and importers that the Government is seriously trying to promote light electric vehicles. I wonder to what extent the Minister feels that the target is just a little too timid. 
In the explanatory note of the bill there is also reference to concern about creating a precedent. I would be interested to know from the Minister to what extent he feels this initiative is creating a precedent and whether he feels that by going down this particular path other examples will be brought to him particularly things that might have an environmental benefit whereby people might be looking for a road-user charge exemption. So I would be interested to know what process or what criteria he will be using to in effect suspend contributions to the National Land Transport Fund by some motorists. I think that would be quite useful information for him to give us. 
I return to the point about climate change. We would like to know the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that he believes will be reduced as a consequence of Part 1 and we would like to know what target he would like to see set for that area. We know that people are very keen to make their contribution. One of the ways that households can do that most easily is through the transport sector where there are fossil fuel emissions. The ability for people to make decisions to reduce their footprint in that respect is important and for that to occur he has a role to play as the Minister of Transport.