Fenton Darien: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Road User Charges Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call in the Committee stage of the Road User Charges Amendment Bill and to address Part 1. I do not think there is anything in Part 1 that members on this side of the Chamber would find much disagreement with. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: OK sit down then. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: If Tau Henare would be patient I do have some things to say about it. 
Grant Robertson 
: He isn’t a patient person. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: That is true but I did happen to listen to his contribution so I ask that he please listen to mine. I am sorry to go over this point again— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: Well then don’t. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: I am sorry to do it; I am not bitter about this but I am extremely disappointed in the process. My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway was talking about the things we could have considered had the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee had the opportunity to do so. I for one was looking forward to hearing more about the science and the future of electric-powered vehicles. I will admit that I do not know a lot about this topic. I wanted to know more and I wanted to learn more. We could have learnt more about what other countries are doing. We have heard some of that in this debate. We could have had a look at those things and suggested to the Government that some of them could be considered if not in this bill then perhaps in the future. That would have been a forward-thinking innovative report from the select committee. Never mind as I said I am not bitter but I do feel disappointed that there are lost opportunities. 
I am glad that David Bennett referred to the report in the  
New Zealand Herald  
about what is happening in the United States. Sure the report is about the buyers of hybrid vehicles but I just want to ask the Minister whether he has considered some of the reports that came out of this article today. The United States has a programme that offers rebates to hybrid vehicle buyers. The objective is to increase the percentage of fuel-efficient vehicles in the national fleet thereby producing environmental benefits. But any increase in hybrid vehicles has come largely at the expense of small fuel-efficient conventional cars rather than people getting rid of their gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles which is what the United States was trying to target. Apparently American car buyers are choosing hybrids over similarly priced small and medium sized conventional cars and these are not far behind hybrids in terms of fuel efficiency and emissions. So the reduction in carbon emissions is therefore minimal. Two-thirds of the Americans who bought hybrids were going to buy them anyway. So for the majority the rebates are not changing behaviour. 
I am interested to hear from the Minister as to what research has been done and what information he had prior to considering the measure in this bill. People are saying that yes it is a small start but it is aimed at encouraging people to take up the use of electric vehicles. I think we need to be on top of these issues. As I said it is a small start but now that we are offering road-user charges relief to the buyers of electric vehicles we need to start to think about the issues a lot more. We do have a great opportunity. Other members have talked about some of the things that other countries have been doing. When we say that it is a timid measure I go back to what I said about the opportunity that was missed at the select committee to consider what Denmark and the UK are doing; to have a look at other countries and at what works and what does not work. The reason we say this measure is timid is that it will mean only 300 cars after 5 years. 
Labour members have also raised in this debate their concern about how we help people in old gas-guzzling cars who cannot afford to buy electric cars. How do we help those people to move forward into this new technology? Otherwise what we are saying is that people can have a subsidy if they can afford a brand new electric car but if they are poor and they are stuck with a family car that is 10 years old and does not fit that model they are stuck with it and they will have to pay more. We do not think that is fair and we do think that again the select committee could have considered that issue; it could have thought about it and perhaps come up with some other ideas. 
The other thing is that the Minister has referred to how quiet these vehicles are. I think there is a perverse issue or an unintended consequence from the introduction of electric vehicles and it is the risk that their quietness poses for transport safety. The other day I met with a group of people from the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind. They are genuinely concerned about this because when they are out walking on the footpaths they rely on being able to hear cars coming before they cross the road.