Bennett David: Road User Charges Bill — Third Reading 
Bennett David: Road User Charges Bill — Third Reading 
[Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I would just like to thank the new Minister of Transport and congratulate him on taking up the responsibility of the Road User Charges Bill. I look forward to it progressing and look forward to the many transport initiatives that he will bring to this House. They will be good for the New Zealand economy and the New Zealand transport sector. I would like to thank the Labour Party as well for its support during the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee consideration. I thank the Green Party and all the other parties that were part of that process. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: They’re not here; you’ll have to write to them. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: Yes. The committee approached this issue in a very constructive manner. It looked at the issues from the perspective not only of the Government needing to reform but also of the industry and the wider transport sector. I think we came to a pretty good solution in the sense that as has been said there was need for some decent change in this area. If that change had not been accommodated through this process then we would get to the results that Labour found when it tried to make some changes without full consultation. There were a lot of protests and I do not think the trucking industry or anyone else necessarily wants to go through that again. 
Labour members have made a few comments about supporting the bill but having some reservations. I would just like to cover off some of those reservations. With the movements to the gross weights the Labour members indicated they did not feel they had sufficient evidence. Well I think they need to go out into the real world and see how it works out there. If you are in the trucking industry and you have to first identify those weights every time then that makes it particularly difficult. Second if you have got a lot of staff involved in that process then that puts a lot of responsibility on to them and can make it very difficult when you have got high fines that are the result of making mistakes there. A third issue is that in an industry or any business you want to get the most productivity out of your vehicle and you will want to do the best you can. So sometimes you will push the boundaries and that is human nature I guess. We see that through all our laws in regard to the roads. The laws are pretty strict. So in essence there are a lot of reasons why it can happen and it does happen out there. To put your head in the sand and say there was no problem—really that is not the case. People need some certainty. This bill gives that certainty and gives it in a manner that is in the best interests of the industry. 
Another issue that Labour raised was the environmental aspect. Well this will actually encourage people to make sure because they are paying to the gross weight of that vehicle that they utilise the full vehicle weight. So it should actually be more environmentally friendly contrary to Labour contentions because people will try to utilize that full weight because they are paying for it. There are ways of getting that back but essentially they are going to pay so they will use the full weight. That will not mean that we will have a lot more smaller trucks on the road; it will actually mean that the trucks on the road are as efficient and as well utilised as possible. 
The other area that Labour brought to our attention just before is in regard to regulations covering the detail. Well simply we cannot as this Parliament do all that detail here. I know that Labour likes to have a situation where the Government controls everything in this country out of this room but we actually need to give the industry—[ 
Interruption 
] Labour’s caucus room would not be able to control much at the moment! The thing is that it cannot necessarily be set here. We need regulation and that is the fit and proper process to do that so that we have got that flexibility within it and it also gives the ability for change if it is necessary rather than having to come through this Parliament every 5 minutes to do a new road-user charges bill. I think that the Minister and the officials have come to the right decision and the right balance in how they are using regulation to achieve the purpose of giving that flexibility in the system. So it is good to hear that members of the major Opposition party are supporting it but their contentions of why they have problems with it are not valid. This is a good bill and it will achieve its purposes and deliver the results we need for the transport sector. Thank you.