Boyack RachelRACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to take a short call on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill. I just want to pick up on a couple of comments that the previous speaker Hamish Campbell made because you might be surprised to hear I agree with some of it about the fact that it is critical we as a Parliament are always considering how we fund our transport projects. It is a challenging area to fund. Way back in the day when nearly all vehicles would have been funded through levies there were some changes made by the Minister of Transport Annette King to ensure that the levies that were collected all went into transport projects because they used to actually go into the general taxation pot. I think it points to the fact that we have a growing infrastructure deficit in this country. We have to fund our roads and the Government opposite us is going to have a massive challenge around how they fund the very many projects that they've promised especially when they add back in the one they've taken away from Nelson. I look forward to that happening.But it's a genuine issue. We have a transition occurring in our transport fleet which means we have a growing number of road users who are not paying for the upkeep of our roads. I think that New Zealanders are about fairness and as much as we need to continue incentivising the switch in the type of vehicle that we are using there is an inherent sense of fairness there around the fact that all of us who use the roads need to be making our contribution to the cost of the upkeep as well as transport projects particularly new pieces of infrastructure that we will be building. So I wanted to just point to some of the things that the bill specifically does just drawing particularly on the needs of those who drive hybrid vehicles. Most of us in this House will use taxis from time to time. Having spoken to a few taxi drivers they're pretty grumpy about what the Government was planning on doing particularly around plug-in hybrids. Now if you compare original hybrids which mostly fuel on a combustion engine and then use the electric vehicle to top them up as opposed to plug-in hybrids that are primarily electric vehicles what we saw in the original drafting of this bill from the Government was an inherent unfairness where you would have those drivers paying the levies on the petrol that they put into the vehicle as well as paying the RUC—the road-user charge. There would have been a double whammy applied to those road users. At the time when the bill came through its first reading that was pointed out. It was pointed out through questions in the House to the Minister that there was going to be extra cost added on to people using plug-in hybrids and more so than other types of vehicles. So it's something that our colleagues—and I'm really pleased that Arena Williams and Tangi Utikere were able to bring this into the select committee and the select committee agreed. Madam Speaker in my area of Nelson and I know I shouldn't bring you into the debate but in your electorate as well we have a lot of people who actually choose hybrids instead of a full electric vehicle (EV). The reason that they do that is because of things like range anxiety. So it is actually the perfect solution to be able to have a vehicle that can draw on a combustion engine when it needs to when you don't have enough charging stations when we're driving through our rural areas like Nelson to Motueka Nelson across the hill to Blenheim. These are real issues for drivers wanting to do the right thing. So in my electorate there was a lot of push back when people heard that there was going to be a double whammy approach to plug-in hybrid vehicles in particular. I'm really pleased that Tangi Utikere and Arena Williams were able to put in this amendment. I'm really pleased that the committee agreed to the amendment and that the Minister of Transport the Hon Simeon Brown has subsequently indicated his agreement. I seem to have lost sound that's OK. I'll use my singing voice for a moment. That's OK I can do that. And so—Hon Member: Sing—sing.RACHEL BOYACK: Oh I could you know I could—Camilla Belich: A very good singer.RACHEL BOYACK: Don't tempt me.I think where we've got to is a really good position here around that fairness for fair treatment of different types of vehicles. The last thing I did want to just mention was around the process. The fact that we had a group of vehicle users that did feel that sense of unfairness where actually on reflection the Minister did go and change his view shows the flaw in the process that the Government has applied in terms of the short period of time that we had at select committee in order to put this bill through. So there is a lesson here that actually bills like this which are so fundamental to how we ultimately collect the revenue we need to fund our critical transport infrastructure projects—it just goes to show that we actually do need to allow the committee to have the time that they need to be able to give proper consideration to a bill of this kind. I'm sure that will come up throughout the committee stage. So Labour is pleased to be able to support this bill. I look forward to the Government—as the Opposition I think we should always be talking across the House in a constructive way around how we do fund transport projects. I look at the—as a former member of the committee—the members before I joined did do a very good study into congestion charging in Auckland. You know it's an issue that is challenging for motorists to have to respond to but these are the conversations that we need to have so that we know we're actually getting the right incentives around the types of vehicles that people are using but also making sure that we are collecting the revenue that we need. Auckland is going to now be facing a real challenge. So on that note I really look forward to the Minister hearing the views of the Nelson electorate and giving us our Rocks Road project back. This is an excellent bill and I commend it to the House.