SpeechJAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to take a call on this bill. Look there's some excellent—excellent—stuff in here. I'd like to start with the fringe benefit tax exemption for public transport and just sort of tease that out a little bit. The biggest challenge we face as a country is climate change. It's the biggest challenge we face as a planet. The focus has been on COVID over the past few years in a way that sort of masked what the key challenge is for the planet and that is climate change. In New Zealand our transport emissions make up 20 percent of our emissions—a significant amount—and I'd like to acknowledge the work that this Government is doing in terms of reducing our transport emissions. This piece of legislation is another example of that. So the bill proposes to exempt public transport from fringe benefit tax where bus train ferry tram or cable car services are subsidised by an employer mainly for the purpose of their employee travelling between their home and place of work. Now just to put a local context on this there are a number of businesses in Hamilton who are actively already doing this and others who are having conversations around it with the likes of the Waikato Regional Council and myself around what they can do. We're also seeing Government agencies start to move into this area which is really really good to see. Now today is World Car Free Day and I'm sure there are members in the House and constituents of members in this House who would be asking the question Well what sort of public transport could I take? What sort of public transport could my employer potentially support me with and obviously be incentivised to do so because of the exemption of the fringe benefit tax?" Well there are a number of examples and more examples springing up all the time. One would be the Te Huia passenger rail service between Hamilton and Auckland—excellent excellent service. In fact I feel like we are the envy of many other regions across New Zealand because the investment of this Government and the support of local councils in terms of getting this through. Now in August 5698 passengers took the Te Huia rail service.Hon Member: How many?JAMIE STRANGE: Yeah 5698. Now that's over 5000 cars off the road so it supports with congestion as people travel. Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is he talking about Te Huia?JAMIE STRANGE: I am talking about Te Huia—the Te Huia passenger rail service. I'm sure the member's constituents down in Dunedin would be envious of this Te Huia passenger rail service because as I travel around the country people are talking about regional connections—how we can improve regional connections. For those who have not taken the Te Huia passenger rail service considering I've been encouraged by the other side to talk about it a little bit more the comfort of the travel is absolutely remarkable. You can sit down at a comfortable seat. You've got a table you've got charging points you've got Wi-Fi. You can open your laptop. You can work all the way between Hamilton to Auckland or Auckland to Hamilton. There's a cafe on board. There's a bathroom on board. I've taken my family with me a number of times. And the best thing is Hamilton to Auckland $9—$9 from Hamilton to Auckland; $18 return obviously. And there's even cheaper fares for those who take their family. So recently we took our family from Hamilton and went up to the Strand and then we nipped across to Devonport—a lovely part of the country—spent some time there and then we hopped back on the train and came back home. It was a really lovely day; really family experience.Hon Todd McClay: How much did it cost the taxpayer when you did that?JAMIE STRANGE: Well it was about $20 maybe 30 bucks for the whole family—for the whole family to go to Simon Watts' electorate.Look there's more I could say about this area like the FlixBus and other exciting things that are happening many of it being led by the Waikato Regional Council councillors like Angela Strange just picking one just randomly. Excellent piece of work going on in that space. A good piece of legislation I commend it to the House."