Brown SimeonHon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you Mr Chair for those questions. A number of questions have been posed by members. The Hon Damien O'Connor was asking around enforcement. All the provisions of the road-user charges (RUC) in terms of enforcement for those who use road-user charges will apply here. How will people become aware how to pay? Obviously that's why we've got a two-month transition period. The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) is doing a significant education campaign writing to all of those vehicle owners to ensure that they understand their obligations. There's a two-month transition period for them to buy their first RUC licence as well. So it's important that that happens but the reality is as the member knows hundreds of thousands of people have diesel vehicles and the reality is it is not an unknown system. So yes it will take time for people to enter it but the reality is the NZTA is working very hard to ensure people understand their obligations. There are also enforcement provisions which are available if people don't purchase a RUC licence.In terms of the conversation we've been having here around the road-user charge rate I would point members to the departmental report—I think it's page 22—which discussed how the light RUC rate is set. The light RUC rate is made up of $61 of shared costs which are spread equally across all vehicle types and doesn't depend on the weight of the vehicle. So those are things like maintaining the road for weather-related damage investments in public transport non – weight related costs for building new roads and installation of road signage; $10 to account for the space the vehicle takes up $4 to account for the vehicle weight costs—and of course being a light vehicle that weight cost is a relatively small portion of the overall RUC cost—and $1 to account for weight-based road wear.So this bill doesn't attempt to change the road-user charge rate but it attempts to obviously provide a new rate for plug-in hybrids and the reason for that is because they have two fuel sources which means that if they didn't have this lower rate they would be required to pay the full rate and then they'd have to go and apply for their excise back and that would cause an enormous administrative and cumbersome process. So the balanced approach through that is to have a lower rate. As I've said this is a temporary measure. The Government's policy is to move all vehicles to a road-user charge distance weight-based system where people pay fairly for the use of the road based on the weight of their vehicle how many kilometres they travel and the—Hon Damien O'Connor: Use of or impact on?Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well all of those elements that I have just outlined to the member there: $61 of shared costs so that's the use of; $10 to account for space so that's use of; $4 for weight; $1 for road wear. So there's a range of elements which are caused by using the road. There's a number of impacts that vehicles have and the RUC rate is set to account for those things. So as I've said it is our policy to move all vehicles to a road-user charge system where people pay the same amount based on the weight and kilometres rather than what type of fuel they use.I understand that the members are raising a range of questions around the fuel usage and the impact and there is a range of variances within the system which need to be addressed. Hence why we have made that commitment to move all vehicles to a road-user charge system so that it is fair. Then those who choose to purchase an electric vehicle or a hybrid or a plug-in hybrid or if they require a diesel they pay the energy costs based on that choice but ultimately the money that's required to build and maintain the road is not dependent on the type of fuel that they use. So we're separating those two issues out over time. That's the intention; we've started work on doing that. This bill in the meantime brings those light vehicles and those plug-in hybrid vehicles into the systems. We've always acknowledged there are variances we need to sort the variances out and that is why we will be progressing at pace to move all vehicles to road-user charges.