Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. The problem that this bill intends to solve is not a simple problem of removing the cost of motoring the cost of operating diesel-fuelled vehicles. The problem that this piece of legislation is attempting to solve is beyond the capacity of this Government to solve—and that is the cost of living crisis. I had an email today from Ashley. She asked the ACT Party on the subject of road-user charges Could Labour scrap them forever?" Because the costs that her family are bearing right now with day care with rent paying back her student loan and paying for all of her family's costs meant that this small reduction in road-user charges that would benefit her family was not even a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money that they are spending just to keep the lights on and to make sure that they have food on the table. Ashley wrote and said she lives in Auckland with her partner. He's a self-employed truckie and he pays himself only $65000 a year because he can't afford to pay himself any more because the cost of fuel road-user charges and running the truck mean that's all he can afford to take out of the business. Ashley mentioned that when her partner filled up his diesel car it cost $161 and that's before the road-user charges. This piece of legislation rushed through under urgency will not help Ashley and her family overcome the enormous increase in cost of living that this Government has overseen in such a short period of time. But let's be clear: this Government's policies not only have pushed up the price of everything they've caused a housing crisis there's a congestion crisis on the roads and there's a massive crisis in how we fund and finance infrastructure. But look even if this Government could justify taking road-user charges it doesn't actually spend them on roads. In response to a written question to the Minister in 2021 "What percentage of the 2021 to 2031 New Zealand Transport Agency budget is allocated to investment in road construction?" the Minister said it would be 23 percent—23 percent! So while the Minister has stood up here in the House tonight and has claimed that this piece of legislation which reduces the cost of road-user charges for diesel-powered vehicles will actually improve the lives of New Zealanders and help reduce their cost of living what he's not admitting to is that less than a quarter of the money that the Government takes from road users actually goes into delivering the roads that they depend on for their communities to thrive. So if we look at other examples road-user charges that should be delivering better roads that should be permitting people who live in cities to get around without having to spend an estimated 40 to 45 minutes if you live in Wellington and Auckland an additional 40 to 45 minutes every day sitting on congested roads—the road-user charges aren't even going to fix the problems that this Government and this Minister tell you they're trying to fix. We know that because this Labour-led Government and the previous Labour-led Government have cancelled roading projects that were deemed absolutely vital not by politicians but by the businesses that depend on road freight and by the communities that want to move safely between home and school and work.I'll give you some examples of cancelled projects The four-laning from Whangārei to Port Marsden that's a road that has thousands sometimes 12000 or 13000 of heavy vehicle movements a day. That project was assumed to be going ahead but was cancelled by the Minister after the New Zealand Upgrade projects got away from him in terms of cost. What about the Penlink project that was cancelled by the 2017 Labour-led Government but has since been re-announced? No doubt when it is finally built it'll be at an enormous cost much greater than it could have been. What about the Tauranga Northern Link cancelled by a Labour-led Government in 2017? Although you know clearly there was money to build stuff and that's going to be delivered no doubt at a much much greater cost when it is finally built. The other problem that we have with road-user charges as they're currently hypothecated to projects that aren't even being delivered is that a large proportion of that cost is also being diverted to things like the bike bridge over the Waitematā Harbour where $51 million was spent on consulting fees without even making progress to complete the business case before that project was cancelled. So what's the solution? What is the problem we're trying to solve here? Well it's a cost of living crisis the Government says it's trying to solve by meddling with road-user charges at the fringe. What we really need roads to do is to connect communities so that people who want to work somewhere know they can get to work in a reasonable time they can get the kids to school they can pick them up after work and they can get on with their family life. So what does ACT say? Well firstly we'd solve this cost of living crisis by actually giving road users who pay for their carbon emissions through the emissions trading scheme a carbon rebate. ACT announced recently that we would give families around $750 a year that they should get back from the emissions trading scheme because that's what they already pay for their carbon emissions. We think that's a much better deal than what this Government's offering. When we think about other ways to solve the cost of living crisis—well firstly the regulations that are crafted to administer this piece of legislation will no doubt be top heavy. They'll be difficult to navigate. It'll be an extra cost on business. What we should be aspiring to is less congestion. Road pricing could help solve that. Better public transport—again users paying for roads could help pay for better public transport. What we should be aspiring to is thriving communities and a healthy economy. ACT will support this bill because it actually reduces taxation but this is not how we're going to solve the cost of living crisis. Thank you Madam Speaker. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break and the House will resume at 7 p.m. this evening.Sitting suspended from 6.02 p.m. to 7 p.m."