Road User Charges Bill

In the last couple of minutes of time I have remaining, it would be remiss of me not to refer to the fantastic and wonderful speeches that were delivered to the House before the dinner break by new Labour members. I want to congratulate them all, and I think we can look forward to a really good 3 years with members of that calibre here.

But in regards to the Road User Charges Bill, before the adjournment last week I had outlined Labour’s concerns about the bill and that some of them are not really being addressed. I was beginning to talk about New Zealand’s unique road-user charges system, that it is a good thing, actually—we have had it for many, many years—and that it is now starting to be emulated by other countries, such as European countries, Australia, and other countries, as they accept that diesel tax on trucks is not going to provide the revenue to create and maintain the roads needed to maintain a growing freight task throughout Europe and other economies.

I just wanted to record in my last remaining seconds that actually we have a fantastic industry in this country. It made submissions through the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. We have some wonderful innovative companies that have taken up this challenge about road-user charges, are selling our product to the rest of the world, and are providing clean, green, and clever innovations, and that is wonderful. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I am very pleased to take a call on the third reading of the Road User Charges Bill, which the Green Party will be supporting. I did not have the privilege of contributing to the development of this bill myself, so I must acknowledge the work of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, the submitters and officials, the members of this House who contributed during the Committee stage, and, especially, my eminently qualified colleague Gareth Hughes, who was intimately involved in the scrutiny of the bill up until this point.

As Mr Hughes mentioned in his previous speeches on this bill, we are happy to support the bill because it begins to modernise and simplify the road-user charges system. Road-user charges contributed about 37 percent of the National Land Transport Fund last year, and that was about $1 billion. The goal of this bill is to increase compliance, which is good; to simplify enforcement, which is also good; and to provide an incentive for the efficient use of heavy vehicles. I note that by basing the charging on the maximum permissible weight for a given vehicle class, there is a very small incentive to use a heavy vehicle to its full capacity. Now, by optimising heavy vehicle movements around the country, we can deliver the same amount of freight at a much lower cost to business with better social and environmental outcomes and at a lower cost to the public purse. This is a win-win, and it is the kind of win-win that we could achieve a lot more of with our transport policy and funding.

I believe there is a real role for the Government to play in levelling the playing field and providing an incentive for transport to occur in a more efficient and effective manner. Although we support this bill, the Green Party sees it as a real lost opportunity to encourage greater efficiency, especially energy efficiency. We are currently facing a paradigm shift in transport. If New Zealand seizes this opportunity, we can spend less money and have a transport system that delivers far better outcomes.

In 2008 there was a report to the New Zealand Transport Agency that identified a number of transport market distortions that have lead to an over-reliance on private vehicles for the movement of people and of freight in this country. It was an entirely understandable unintended consequence of Government policy and funding at all levels of government—local government, central government, and regional government—that has led to a transport system that is really not energy efficient and is incredibly overly reliant on cars for personal transport and on trucks for freight. This report identified a number of changes to the road-user charges system, to the petrol tax system, and to transport funding in general that would help deliver a much more efficient transport system for New Zealand, and this is going to be particularly important, as higher oil prices are imminent.

What I would like to identify about this bill is that currently the road-user charges are contributing 37 to 40 percent of our National Land Transport Fund, and that is about equivalent to the amount of money that is planned to be spent by this Government each year just on new motorways. Now, some may think that is fair, but in fact road-user charges are intended to pay for maintenance and renewal of the existing network, and should be used for transport solutions that are going to enable goods and people to be moved in the most cost-effective way possible. Is a new motorway or extending the expressway north and south of Auckland the most efficient way to enable freight to move on our roads? Evidently not. At peak hour, only 1 percent of the traffic on the roads in Auckland is heavy vehicles, so we could easily free up the roads quite significantly for freight and commercial vehicles simply by shifting commuters on to more cost-effective modes such as walking, cycling, buses, and trains. We do not have to force people to do that; we just need to make the costs of transport more direct and people will be able to weigh up those decisions for themselves. What the transport modelling shows us is that people would choose to take public transport, walk, and cycle more if those options were delivered for them.

By continuing transport policy and land use policy that artificially subsidise private vehicles, we are making the transport system more vulnerable to high oil prices, which we know are coming. So spending all the road-user charges on a few motorways is a stupid idea that will not actually be good for the freight industry, as households and businesses have to spend more to get around at peak hour. That means they have less money available to pay for goods in the domestic economy. What does that result in? Lower demand for goods that are transported by heavy vehicles for freight.

I note that despite all of these unintentional subsidies to road transport, the briefing to the incoming Minister of Transport stated that 45 percent of the products destined to become exports are currently moved around New Zealand by rail. The Green Party sees significant opportunities to grow the role of rail and sea freight, and that is a perfectly legitimate use of the National Land Transport Fund because it is actually going to improve the situation for those who are currently in the freight industry, whether they are using trucks or other means.

In conclusion, the Green Party is happy to support this bill, but we feel it is a real lost opportunity. It does not go far enough to changing the transport system in the way that is necessary for New Zealand to meet the challenges of this century. Thank you.

This is the first time I have spoken in this Chamber since the election, so can I take the opportunity to congratulate, firstly, the presiding officers, and especially yourself on your elevation to Deputy Speaker, and I would also like to congratulate all members of the House on their re-election, or their initial election if it is their first time.

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: Great result in Botany.

Thank you, and all that hard campaigning you did for me, Mr Guy, was much appreciated; thank you. Can I say that I have enjoyed the contributions from new members so far, but I am looking forward to the real stars of the class of 2011 taking their first stand in the House on Thursday.

It is good to see that the Road User Charges Bill is finally here for its third reading. Can I say thank you to the Ministers of Transport—firstly, the Hon Steven Joyce, and the Hon Gerry Brownlee, now—for getting this bill this far in the House. It is a good bill, and it is one that I hope a large number of members in the Parliament will be supporting. And credit where credit is due—I think it is worthwhile acknowledging that the Labour Party actually initiated the road-user charges review back in, I think, 2008, which ended up culminating in this bill, where we are seeing these quite significant changes to the road-user charges system.

As has been pointed out by members in this debate before it was adjourned last week, and also by the new member Julie Anne Genter earlier, this is about making the road-user charges system more simplified, it is about making it easier to understand, and it is about making it easier for the Government to enforce. It is important that when you have taxes in place, and when you have penalties for not paying those taxes, it is easy to enforce the paying of those taxes, as well. I am pleased to see that just about every party in the House, I understand, is supporting this bill. We heard from the Labour members last week about their views on the bill. They are supporting the bill, but they indicated some areas of concern. I do not tend to agree with the areas of concern that the members of the Labour Party were raising last week, and in a minute I will take a few moments to outline why I do not think the views they are bringing to the House really have much credibility.

This bill is about making it easier for business. It is about making it easier for New Zealanders to run their road transport using the road-user charges system. The previous system of nominated weights was incredibly complicated and it led to operators having to estimate how heavy the vehicles were. There are inherent problems in that, and it also meant that the authorities had to work out whether there were problems and try to work out what the weight was after the fact. With this new system we have a road-user charges regime where we will know what every vehicle’s gross weight is and what its road-user charges will be. There is no estimating involved, and it is far simpler.

I was listening very intently to the Labour Party members last week. Darien Fenton and Phil Twyford outlined some concerns.

💬 Darien Fenton: “Dar-rien” Fenton.

Darien Fenton; I am sorry, Darien. Darien Fenton and Phil Twyford outlined some concerns they had, and they were complaining that they did not feel that their concerns were answered adequately. I have done a bit of research this afternoon, and actually just about all the answers to their concerns are found within the documents they were concerned about. We heard from two Opposition members that they did not feel as though there was very much consultation on this bill. Well, I went through to page 178 of 189 pages—and it is buried quite deep in the departmental report but it is in there. This bill went through four phases of consultation by the Ministry of Transport before we got to the bill here. It had a consultation in September to November 2009. It had consultation in early 2010. It had another consultation a bit later in 2010, and then in October and December 2010 it had further consultation. That is four consultation phases.

There was also the road-user charges review that the Hon Annette King initiated when she was the Minister of Transport. That went through consultation with the industry, and on top of that we had the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee consultation. Now, that is six phases of consultation on the work that led up to this bill. I do not think anyone can stand up in this House and say there has not been consultation with the industry, when this issue has been through six phases of consultation. There will be further consultation on top of that when it comes to the setting of the charges through regulations, which will probably be taking place later this year.

We also heard complaints that the Government is doing this nasty thing called regulations. What the Government will be doing is setting in place the charges through a secondary phase of legislation. It is not possible to set the charges in this bill because this bill, we are hoping, will stand for many years, and obviously the charges have to change from time to time. I know Labour members know about changing road-user charges rates, as 2008 was quite a hectic time for them when it came to road-user charges. But you simply cannot set those charges in the primary bill. It would be ridiculous to try to do that, so setting those charges through regulations is not an unusual step. It is quite a logical step. But if you are asking yourself why the Government is doing this through regulations, and you are concerned that the Government is using regulations, and if you are hearing that from the Labour members, you would think that Labour members are somehow opposed to the use of regulations.

Well, I was a little bit busy this afternoon and I did a little bit more research. In the last term of the Labour Government 1,263 regulations were passed by the last Labour Government. So I take offence a little bit when I hear Labour members standing up and saying they do not like the use of regulations. In the last term of the Labour Government it passed 1,263 regulations. So please stop whacking us over the head about the use of regulations. It is reasonable to set the charges through the use of regulation.

The third topic I want to discuss is about who are going to be winners and who are going to be losers. We heard from Darien Fenton and Phil Twyford about the Motor Caravan Association. The Motor Caravan Association raised some points. It is concerned about what the charges will be. I think it is worthwhile pointing out that the charges have not been set yet. They will be set later on. We are going through consultation first, but the members raised the plight of the Motor Caravan Association. The association, in its submission, was under the impression that charges were going to go up astronomically. It is important to remember that this change will be revenue-neutral for the Government. There will be some people who get small increases, and there will be people who get some small decreases, but there is no expectation that overall revenue will increase. This is about changing the system, not increasing the revenue.

The Motor Caravan Association, unfortunately, used some old figures in its submission. It was using existing road-user charges figures, which just will not apply to the new regime. It believes that its charges will be going up, and it gave an example of a motor caravan that is 19,000 kilograms, or 19 tonnes—a type 5 motor vehicle. It believes that that charge will go up by 270 percent. I can quite understand that 270 percent sounds like a lot, but that is simply not the case. Again, I am looking at the departmental report, and the answer was right there for the Labour members. The Labour members did not quite see this, but the departmental report itself outlines an answer to the Motor Caravan Association. Rather than the road-user charge going up to $451, as the association believed it would, it would actually go up to only about $246. It is just an estimate at the moment, but $246 versus $451 is quite a difference and nowhere near the increase that Labour members were telling this House last week that road-user charges would be going up by.

This is a good bill. This is a bill that will make it easier for the industry. It is a bill that will make it easier for the Government, and it is a bill that will remove a whole lot of complexity from the road-user charges system. I am glad the Labour members are supporting it. I am glad other members in the House are supporting it, but I just had to answer some of those concerns we heard from the Opposition. They are simply not concerns that are relevant to this debate, because the research was not done, and the answers were right there in the departmental report. I look forward to this bill being passed by the House tonight.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Road User Charges Bill. It is very interesting that the honourable Jami-Lee Ross has done a little bit of research. I would like to remind members that actions have consequences, and the consequences of this bill could be far-reaching indeed for the citizens of New Zealand. And I would remind members that consultation is one thing, but listening and taking heed are entirely another.

This is New Zealand First’s first vote on the bill, and we oppose it. After careful scrutiny and after considering items that are transported by diesel—everything from people, public transport users, and schoolchildren to inanimate objects such as building products, chemicals, and medicines; then we have household rubbish and everything on the supermarket shelf—New Zealand First also entered into discussions and listened to affected and concerned parties within the industry, including road transport freight owners, crane operators, trucking firms, large livestock-carrying firms, horse trainers, individual truck owner-operators, and members and representatives of the Motor Caravan Association. Now, without exception, everyone spoken to expressed grave reservations on this bill in the areas of fairness and expense.

It is also a bill that, it is fair to say, many in the industry know very little about. It has been stated that the purpose of the bill is to modernise and simplify the road-user charges system, to eliminate the scope for error and fraud. Upon first inspection, despite a failure to prove systematic fraud surrounding road-user charges, a rather heavy-handed approach seems to have been followed in penalising everyone for the unsubstantiated presumed fraudulent behaviour of a few.

There are other goals, and they are to reduce administration complexity, reduce compliance costs, and simplify enforcement. New Zealand First believes that the bill has far-reaching implications that will have a negative impact within our New Zealand society in terms of fairness, affordability, safety, and even environmental considerations. Let us first consider fairness. The honourable members Shane Jones and Phil Twyford both expressed their reservations with regard to the effects on small businesses and motorhome owners, and one should respect their experience.

We ask whether it is fair for small trucking operators such as furniture movers, who transport large, bulky items such as mattresses, pillows, and sofas—and they are not necessarily heavy objects. Pray tell how will they be able to operate profitably when they will be charged every day for heavier loads than they will probably ever carry? Is it fair to skip operators, who drop off an empty skip to most building sites in New Zealand, return empty to their yard, and then drive empty to collect a full skip? Surely, we can find a better, more equitable way than to charge full-load prices on every trip. These increases will undoubtedly trickle down to the end-user and add to building costs in the New Zealand housing industry.

New Zealand First has concerns for the 22,000 motorhome owners registered with the Motor Caravan Association. In talks with them they question the fairness of suddenly having their road-user charges increased—mostly doubled, and in some cases trebled—because of new band widths and maximum permissible on-road weight charges, when their weight is constant and in most cases considerably less than their maximum chassis weight. There are other considerations amongst motorhome owners in their contribution to internal tourism. This can be seen in the many rallies that the Motor Caravan Association holds throughout New Zealand every weekend in our cities and small towns, adding to the economies of those areas. Many motorhome owners are pensioners, and dramatic increases will affect their discretionary spend and also potentially affect the resale of their motorhomes. So New Zealand First cannot, in good conscience, do a Pontius Pilate here and have these clear failings in the bill left to the Minister of Transport to sort out.

There are similar obstacles in this bill for those in the racing industry, where we have horse trucks continually loading and offloading animals and their frustration with the administration. We have buses, refrigerator units, and many others. There are many truckies who have invested considerable sums to purchase B train units to enable them to compete within the current, sense-making framework of the current legislation. What about them? These multi-wheeled vehicles are safer because more axles distribute the load, meaning safer driving. If this bill is passed, these operators will need full loads both ways to compete, and in some cases to stay in business. This bill could very well be the catalyst that leads to every truck on the road carrying maximum loads, leading to worse wear and tear on our highways and obvious safety issues. It also has the potential to lead to more smaller trucks on the roads, again travelling with maximum weights, and the challenges that I have expressed that that brings.

So although this bill started with the very best of intentions, there are many holes that—pardon the pun—you could drive a truck through, provided you could afford the road charges. To date, I have highlighted the injustice of this bill, and in the same vein I would ask the parties to consider the social ramifications that drill right down from exporters and importers to the average man and woman on the street, with the flow-on cost effect. Large or small goods—even a humble can of peas—travel by truck at least 10 times from seed until they reach a supermarket shelf. Now, obviously, the cost is going to go to the end-user, and with affordability stretched one wonders how the average Kiwi mum and dad will be able to afford to buy those asset shares that we hear so much about from this National-led Government.

There are also environmental concerns. At a time when we are trying to encourage people into public transport, how can we introduce a cost increase to public transport and school buses? New Zealand First is not here just to oppose; we suggest a more equitable system of levying that is not one of one-size-fits-all. The solution may be to look at charges at the pump. There is a simple formula here, and that is diesel is fuel, fuel is proportional to horsepower, and horsepower is directly proportional to weight. So the more weight you pull, the more fuel you need. By addressing the issue at the pumps, we would cut compliance costs and do away with administrative complexity and any requirement for legal enforcement.

There could also be concessions for environmentally friendly engines. The new diesel engines are more environmentally friendly than ever before, and surely we should be encouraging innovation and creativity. Now, one of the flaws of this system is that the fishing and shipping industries do not use the roads, but surely it is a path that could do with investigation and robust discussion. So on behalf of all of those in New Zealand who have expressed their concerns about this bill, New Zealand First opposes it for the above reasons. Thank you.

I am pleased to be speaking to the third reading of the Road User Charges Bill. I sat on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee in the last term of Parliament, and what a good committee it was, chaired by David Bennett and continuing to be chaired by David Bennett. We heard many submissions on this bill. I would like to congratulate Steven Joyce, the previous Minister of Transport. I think he made a significant contribution in the transport area, and certainly he has made safer journeys for New Zealanders over his term. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate the officials and submitters on this bill, and to wish the new committee, which I am no longer on, well on its future deliberations and business in the future.

This bill has been amended to ensure that it is enduring because, quite frankly, the current system is outdated. It is really last century and it was well and truly overdue for an overhaul. This bill will modernise the road-user charges system. It will reduce compliance costs for operators, eliminate the scope for error and fraud in the purchase of road-user charges licences, and simplify enforcement and administration requirements. It is very important. We must have a fair system, a balanced system, and a well-managed system. This is what this law will do. The road-user charges—or RUC—system was established in 1978. It is a long time ago, and this review is very timely. All the revenue from the road-user charges system goes to the National Land Transport Fund, and the fund is used mainly for road construction and maintenance, along with other activities benefiting road users.

The bill is a result of the recommendations of the Independent Review of the New Zealand Road User Charging System, and it brings about the most significant reform of road-user charges since it was introduced—it is a very significant reform. Diesel vehicles are very popular in New Zealand—diesel is cheaper than petrol—and more economical to run. Fuel consumption tests generally give results between 20 percent and 30 percent better for a diesel-engine car compared with the same model with a petrol engine. But also you have got to know that up to 36 percent of diesel is used off-road, such as on farms; in manufacturing, industrial, and commercial ventures; and on boats.

But back to this bill. This bill is about bringing the road-user charges system into the 21st century, from 1978 to 2012. This bill addresses the concern about road-user charges evasion, which is conservatively estimated to be $30 million per year, which is not an insignificant sum. This bill will remove the evasion opportunities and encourage timely payment, making a fairer system for all.

The main provisions of the bill are, first of all, a change in the definition of vehicle weight. Currently, road-user charges are based on the distance travelled and the weight carried. The system is complicated, and it has been open to error. An operator has to guess the actual gross weight to be carried, and it can be difficult for an operator to predict in advance the actual weight to be carried. It is also very difficult, of course, to recover the charges owing after the fact. The bill changes the definition of vehicle weight to a fixed road-user charge, so that operators do not have to guess in advance, and so that Government authorities do not have to deal with recovering money afterwards. Inevitably this will result in lower administrative costs for the industry and the Government, and, of course, it will mean that fewer road-user charges are lost through evasion, so it is a win-win.

There are a number of other provisions. Others are removal of a time licence system and modernisation of the list of vehicles exempted from road-user charges. There is also an improvement to the regulatory framework for electronic management systems, and this really shows how far we have come from 1978 through to 2012. Really, back in 1977 when the Road User Charges Act came into power, we did not have electronic systems and we did not have the internet. None of this would have been dreamt of all that time ago. So, really, we have brought the system into the 21st century, and it means much more efficiency and much more fairness. It means that road-user charges can be purchased electronically, and that a distance licence can be displayed electronically on an on-board unit situated in the vehicle. And, of course, the distance travelled by the vehicle is measured electronically. It is all done electronically, something which no one, and certainly not our parents, would have thought of back in 1977. Quite frankly, the Road User Charges Bill of 1977 never would have dreamt of such a possibility, that in 2012 we would be going to such a modern system.

Another provision in the bill is that it is a fairer, simpler, and less costly structure in relation to offences—penalties—particularly for light vehicles. I cannot emphasise the fact that, really, a fixed road-user charges weight means that the distance-based evasion will be the main focus of compliance management, and will, obviously, save money and save time.

Really, this bill, I cannot stress enough, is about bringing road-user charges into the 21st century. It is about reducing compliance costs for transport operators, and, ultimately, reducing transport costs for our businesses and exporters. These changes will make it easier and fairer to all those who pay road-user charges, and that has to be good. Changing the definition of licence weights, removing the confusing time licence system, and simplifying the list of exempted vehicles will all reduce compliance costs for businesses, simplify the administrative processes for industry and Government, and save a lot of time and frustration and confusion at times. The New Zealand Transport Agency will also be able to take greater advantage of modern internet technology in administering road-user charges payment channels.

This bill addresses concerns about the evasion, which I mentioned before, which has been estimated to be up to $30 million a year, which is a very big sum of money, and that will be addressed in this bill with the different provisions that we have talked about. Really, people who are using road-user charges honestly have been subsidising people who have been evading the system and who have not been paying their road-user charges as they should be. This bill will remove a number of evasion opportunities, encourage timely payment, and make the system fairer for all. I commend this bill to the House.

Labour supports the Road User Charges Bill, with some reservations. But before I get on to that, I did listen with some interest to Jami-Lee Ross’ contribution. Mr Ross, that was the first time I have heard you speak, actually, and I thought you made some very interesting points, particularly about transport overall, and the importance of transport on the economic and social well-being of New Zealand. That is why we on this side of the House have always supported a balanced transport policy. We do not believe that transport has to be about just tarmac and road building. We believe, and we have for a long time, that it is not also only about cycling and walking, but it is actually about utilising all the modes of transport, including road transport, sea transport, air, and rail, for the best economic benefit of this country.

So when we were in Government we set out to have a fair funding system for roading and transport in New Zealand, and it was a Labour Government that brought in hypothecation of all funding for roading, which included road-user charges, excise duty, and registration into a National Land Transport Fund—something the previous Government had refused to do for many, many years—which enables us now to have a much fairer approach to funding transport in New Zealand. But if anyone should know about a road-user charges system, and getting a fairer road-user charges system in place, it probably should be a former Minister of Transport who actually confronted many truckies in 2008 when, in fact, I increased the road-user charges for truckies in this country. So I have been very interested in the progress of this bill.

The former Minister of Transport, Steven Joyce, called this bill a “fairer road-user charges system for everybody” bill, but I wondered why there were people who were upset about it if that was the case. It seemed to me there was a fair amount of spin over substance in Mr Joyce’s comments in that respect.

In July 2008, as the Minister of Transport, I increased road-user charges—the second increase they had had since 1989. So in 19 years road-user charges went up twice—2 years in a row—and I put them up. That was for vehicles over 6 tonnes. And what happened? The truck operators took to the road in protest. So I said: “What I want is a fairer system, one where all the road-user operators paid their fair share and they got their fair share.” But they went to protest over two issues. One was the amount of increase that was going to be charged to them. In fact, it was an extra $32 a year for a small diesel car with an average mileage, and for a typical 5-tonne truck—

💬 Michael Woodhouse: They weren’t small diesel cars in the Octagon protesting.

Just listen and you might learn something, Mr Woodhouse. For a typical 5-tonne truck it was $53 a year, and for a 23-tonne truck, which is capable of carrying quite a lot of freight, it was $198 a year, the reason being that diesel is not subject to any taxation apart from less than half a cent per litre, compared with 42.524c a litre for a car. So I wanted a balanced and fair system.

The second reason they protested at that time was that they did not get enough notice there was going to be an increase. The year before I had given 3 days’ notice that there was going to be an increase in road-user charges. What happened? Many operators went out and pre-purchased road-user charges at the old rate, costing the Government $17 million. So there was a protest.

I set up a working party in conjunction with the industry to look at the formula we could have for setting road-user charges for heavy vehicles, and to put in place legislation to address the notice issue. We put on to that committee three people with expertise and knowledge, and they were to report back in March 2009. We are almost in March 2012, and we have legislation finally going through this House that is going to, in two respects—and particularly in one particular effect—have a big impact on a high percentage of trucking firms. But what exactly that impact is going to be is, at this stage, still secret. Nobody knows what the figures are; they have not been divulged.

The question I am wanting to ask is whether the truck operators will protest again, because they will have a reason to this time. Rather than come up with a system that addresses the notice period, under this bill the charges will be set by regulation by the Minister without public debate. No final numbers will be known before this bill becomes law. The actual charges will be set at a later date. It is seen to be a pretty complicated process, and it could have legal challenges and lead to cost and delay.

One of the submissions to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee pointed out that clause 79 provides for 42 days’ notification of regulations specifying the changes, but there is no process for consultation, so I cannot see that there has been any improvement on the issues that were raised in 2008 and what is happening in this bill. You see, the Road Transport Forum demanded consultation, and that is what I thought was going to happen in this bill. I cannot see in it how this is occurring.

Perhaps I could remind the members what was said at the time when I, in fact, increased road-user charges, and what the National Party said about it. It said it was sneaky to raise road-user charges without warning, but that is what is going to happen in this legislation. It said it would pile huge costs on people, but people are not going to know what those increases are going to be. Bill English went so far as to say that we changed things in the dead of night, that we had promised to consult on it, and that there should have been consultation. Where in this bill now, and when it is passed, is there going to be consultation before road-user charges are increased?

That was the basis of the protest in 2008, so it will be interesting to see whether Tony Friedlander comes out of retirement and asks the truckies to once again protest, now against a National Government. After all, Tony Friedlander was a former National Party member of Parliament. I wonder whether he has the same strength of feeling against what is happening now, as against what happened when we were in Government.

The second major issue that has been protested against is the change moving from nominated weight to gross weights for calculating road-user charges. Well, what does all that mean? To the people listening out there it does not mean an awful lot, but at present, road-user charges are based on distance travelled and weight carried, and the carrier has to estimate in advance the actual gross weight to be carried. For example—and I have never forgotten this example, which was told to me by Fonterra way back in the time when I was Minister of Transport—Fonterra’s trucks can carry 50 tonnes of milk. It is actually allowed to carry only 44 tonnes, so it does not fill its trucks to their full weight. But it is actually going to be charged for carrying a 50-tonne weight. That is what its maximum allowable weight would be. So Fonterra has opposed this bill. It has said that it fails to do what it has said it was going to do.

Operators will now be deemed to be carrying the maximum permissible load on the road at all times, and that is going to put a huge hike on the smaller operators. Now, I know it suits some of the bigger operators. They are the members of the Road Transport Forum. Some of them were very good at avoiding road-user charges. But it is not going to help many of the smaller truck operators. One operator said there would be an additional average cost of $18,000 per vehicle for him, totalling an extra $137,000 per year.

So I am saying there should be a protest about these changes by this Government, if people were really concerned about changes that have been made in the past and are wanting a fairer system. Also, how it can be—as is much claimed by this Government—a fiscally neutral change, when those who carry lighter loads are going to be disadvantaged? I think that the Government missed a very good opportunity to make it fairer.

I would like to congratulate the member who just sat down. She said that people should go out protesting against this Government’s policy. If she thinks people should protest against modernisation and simplifying of the road-user charge—simplifying and modernising New Zealand’s transport operations so that they are cost-effective, efficient, and fair for all users—well, I do not know, maybe she should actually go and encourage people to go and protest about that!

Before I continue to speak about this bill, the Road User Charges Bill, I would like to take an opportunity to congratulate you, Mr Deputy Speaker, on being appointed to the Deputy Speaker’s Chair, and I would also like to congratulate all my new colleagues in this 50th Parliament. This has been the first opportunity for me to speak in this House, and I would like to congratulate my colleagues across the House as well. I did see Mr David Cunliffe just now, and I have to say that—oh, he is sitting over there—I looked up across the House and I hardly recognised him. I looked up in the gallery and I noticed a member of the gallery, a visitor, and recognised another person with a beard, and I have to say that that beard is actually very becoming on Mr Cunliffe.

💬 Hon Annette King: Hear, hear!

It is very becoming, and, you know, it actually goes towards that whole change in the Labour benches, does it not? We have got a new leader, we have got a new—

💬 Michael Woodhouse: It’s a disguise.

Well, it might be a disguise; I do not know. But I have to say that it does actually look very becoming. I would also like to congratulate—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: It must a boring day in the National caucus if you’ve got nothing better to talk about.

Mr Cunliffe, I am actually giving you a compliment. Do you not know how to take it graciously? I would also like to congratulate my colleagues across the bench on coming back into Parliament re-elected. Hopefully we can, you know, work across the House on many things.

I think I was actually at a Chinese New Year event not long ago where Raymond Huo commented that he would like to thank the National Party’s success for his entry into the 50th Parliament, and on that score I would like to thank the member for Waitakere, the Minister for Social Development, for winning that seat. We have got another ethnic MP in this House as a result of it.

💬 Hon Member: A thundering majority.

Pardon?

💬 Hon Annette King: She carries it wherever she goes.

A win is a win, Miss King, and a great win. I was not part of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—

💬 Hon Member: I can tell.

Ha, ha! But I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of those people who submitted on this bill, because obviously it was quite a debate. There was a big debate going on in this committee; obviously Miss King seems to know what she is talking about.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: No, no, Jami-Lee Ross says it was all sorted.

Mr Lees-Galloway, I did not hear you, sorry.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Jami-Lee Ross says it was all sorted. There was no debate.

💬 Andrew Williams: Talk about the Waterview tunnel.

Are you allowed to speak in this House, sir? Have you done your maiden speech?

💬 Andrew Williams: Yes, thank you very much.

OK, thank you. As I was starting earlier, before I actually greeted everybody—happy New Year, everybody. I think I should actually greet everybody in the traditional way that we do in this House: xin nian kuai le. Happy New Year, and se hae bok mani baduseyo. I think I have actually done that. As I said, this is my first speech in the House—I should actually get that out of the way.

National is committed to simplifying and modernising New Zealand’s transport operations so that they are cost-effective, efficient, and fair for all users. I like that, being fair for all users. Say my colleague sitting next to me was driving a big truck that was, I do not know, costing this country a lot of money, and I was driving a tiny little car. If we had to pay the same cost, it would not be fair, would it? National is focused on promoting a road-user charge system that is fair, balanced, and well managed.

This bill gives effect to the Government’s decision arising from the recommendations of the Independent Review of the New Zealand Road User Charging System. I actually found out that the road-user charge system goes back to 1978. It is almost as old as me. I have updated my knowledge and whatever, but for the road-user charge, that has not actually happened.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: That would have been a very short meeting.

Sorry? Where are you a member for, sir? This particular bill aims to bring the road-user charge system into the 21st century. I think that is a fantastic thing—bringing it into the 21st century. We do not want it back in the 1970s, where this system was at. It is about reducing compliance costs for transport operators and ultimately reducing transport costs for our businesses and exporters. I think that is a key thing—reducing costs for exporters—because you do not really want New Zealand export items being so expensive because road-user charges are actually adding extra cost to these exporters. These changes will also make the system easier to understand and fairer for all who actually use the roads, I guess.

As I said earlier, when you actually modernise the system so it becomes fairer for all users, it has to be a good bill. I would like to thank everybody who actually took part in the select committee process, particularly those members who actually sat on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which was not me. I would like to thank them, and I commend this bill to the House.

A win is a win, according to Melissa Lee. I have a question for her: how would she know? How would she know after her stunning results in two elections: a by-election and then a general election in Mt Albert? David Shearer wakes up every morning and he thanks God for Melissa Lee. He is absolutely delighted. One of the best things that ever happened to David Shearer was having Melissa Lee put up against him in the Mt Albert by-election.

I want to know from Melissa Lee, though, about road-user charges. How many of those road-user charges are for the people speeding through Mount Albert on their way from South Auckland through to the North Shore? I want to know how many of those road-user charges are for the people who are trying to avoid all those criminals as they speed through on that new Waterview Connection, which she wanted to avoid building.

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: Trevor’s a bit slow on his bike. He can’t speed.

Trevor cannot speed. You cannot actually ride a bike on a motorway—sharpen up, sharpen up. I am sure he will get there. One does not need road-user charges for a bike yet. I am sure, given long enough, that that is something the National Government will want to implement.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: I think Trevor might be diesel powered.

Best not get into what powers Trevor. I have to say, though, that the wider question for the Government is whether this is it. Here we are in the second week back, in the National Government’s 100 days of action following the last election—it has only a few weeks to go—and the best it can come up with is the Road User Charges Bill. This is the economic transformation that we have been waiting for.

💬 Hon David Parker: The 120-point plan.

And the 20-point plan—

💬 Hon Members: The 120-point plan.

The 120-point plan. Well, it may as well have been only 20 points. I do not think anyone could name the 120 points. Nobody has got any idea what they are. I have not heard National name one, but apparently the Road User Charges Bill is one of them. This is what is going to contribute to our massive economic transformation under the second term of a National Government! And things are going to get so much better now that the truckies have to pay more for carting empty truckloads than they used to have to pay! This is what is going to lead to this great transformation: all these extra jobs that are going to be created by the Road User Charges Bill, which we are debating in the House tonight.

And I have to say, I agree with some of the drivers of the milk tankers—the people who work for Fonterra—who are going to end up being done over by this bill, but I also agree with the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association, which is concerned about the massive increase in costs that this is going to lead to for those who have motorhomes. I am interested in the views on this of the Minister of Tourism, John Key. I would like to know what he has to say about massively increasing the road-user charges—and thereby the costs—for those tourists who hire motorhomes to travel around the country. I am interested that the Minister of Tourism has not had anything to say on this. He does not really talk about tourism much these days. Perhaps that is because not much has been happening in tourism since he took over doing it.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: How’s that cycleway?

How is that cycleway coming along? In fact, perhaps if the Government had done a little bit more on the cycleway, we would not be so worried about road-user charges. We might have a few more people in jobs in this country. It never quite turned out to be that, though. Of course, the cycleway was going to be a big part of the economic transformation agenda as well; it was going to create all those extra jobs. We are still waiting to see those extra jobs eventuating—still waiting. And I suspect in another 2½ years’ time, when the next general election rolls around and this Government’s scorecard is put up, people will still be waiting for the extra jobs that the Government has been promising. The Road User Charges Bill is certainly not going to create the extra jobs that this Government has been promising. It is just fanciful. A lot of the Government’s bold projections are simply fanciful.

I also have a question for the Government. In the week that John Key has been talking about modernising public services and having a technological solution to make public services more responsible, why are we not seeing evidence of that in the Road User Charges Bill? Because, actually, by their very definition, road-user charges are incredibly arbitrary. You are paying the maximum road-user charges for the entire time that the truck is driving, whether it is empty, laden, full, or whatever. Why can we not have a technological solution so that people actually pay for what they use?

💬 Dr Rajen Prasad: Elegant solution.

That would be an elegant solution, to quote the Prime Minister’s favourite line. That would be a modern public service. That would be something that this Government should be looking into, if it is really serious about creating a more responsive Public Service. But, of course, it is not; what it is interested in doing is making arbitrary cuts and saving money, regardless of whether or not that makes public services better or worse. I think New Zealanders can rightly say they would like to see more responsive and more efficient public services. I do not think they are going to get them under this National Government.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. It is good to take a call on the Road User Charges Bill. I have a pretty hard act to follow. We have had comedy hour from Melissa Lee and then Chris Hipkins in the House. I would like to acknowledge you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and all the new members. I would like to acknowledge the new Minister of Transport, Gerry Brownlee. I called the last Minister of Transport the “Colossus of Roads”, but I will not say what we will be calling the new Minister of Transport.

This country is facing a debt crisis, an unemployment crisis, and a climate crisis, and what do we hear from the Government? We hear “Drill it, mine it, sell it.”, and about the Road User Charges Bill. I mean, at a time when we have got so many important issues facing our country, this bill really does define “tinkering around the edges”. The Greens will be supporting this bill, however, because there are some marginal environmental and economic benefits accruing from it. I am surprised that New Zealand First is not supporting the bill. I think that had New Zealand First been here through the select committee process, it might have taken a different approach. We are glad to be supporting this bill, but in the end this is the story of missed opportunities.

Annette King asked a very powerful question, which was whether we are going to see protests when the regulations are formed and the new road-user charges increase. I say I doubt it. I doubt it because we know that the road lobby is the single biggest donor to the National Party. We know that the Government is borrowing $19 billion to pour into motorways benefitting truckies. This Government has made decisions, from the juggernaut heavy trucks through to delaying the petrol and fuel excise and road-user charge rises accruing from rising international oil prices. If the trucking industry has a best mate, it is definitely the National Party. So I do not think we will be seeing protests from the trucking industry like we saw under Annette King’s watch, but when it comes to the regulations around small cars—those 200 small, light diesels—I think we might, in fact, see protests from those small, efficient diesels around the country, because what they are going to see is their road-user charges increasing. By how much, we do not know, because that is entirely up to the new Minister of Transport to decide. What the officials in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee advised us is that the charges are going to be increasing.

What we saw was essentially like a wealth swap, with those heaviest trucks giving the most to the National Party, I guess. Those trucks will be paying the least amount of road-user charges. But it is those small, light, efficient diesels that will be paying the most. They might be paying around $32 extra over 15,000 kilometres. That is not a huge amount. What we are seeing is that wealth transfer. The smallest and the most efficient vehicles are the ones we should be encouraging in order to conserve our oil, to protect our balance of trade, to enhance our economy, to reduce our emissions, and to protect our environment. We should be encouraging those vehicles, but they are the ones subsidising—and I do use the word “subsidising”—those heavy trucks that the Government wants to protect so much.

We do support the bill for the reasons that it is going to be simpler and it is hopefully going to make a dent in that $120 million, that massive administration cost, which comes from the road-user charges. We support this switch to the maximum weight, and this is where our support really comes from. When you have the trucks charged on their maximum weight, what we want to see is these trucks being used as efficiently, as fully, as possible, so that we do not see what we have at the moment, which is trucks with numerous axles—because of past flaws in the road-user charges regime—being carted around the country empty, because that is the way the road-user charges prioritise it.

We are glad the bill maintains the electric car subsidies. I guess we know all these issues—the balance of trade problems, the massive 16 percent oil imports, all the problems facing our country—but the Government has got only 40 electric cars on our roads. In the end, this is a missed opportunity. The Road User Charges Act is older than I am. We are the only country in the world with a road-user charges scheme. We could have actually embraced innovation. We hear about technology, about information technologies this Government is so-called embracing, but when it comes to embracing new technology on this bill—when we could be using electronic monitoring or real-time charging—we are instead going away from a smart approach to a dumb approach. We are going to an averaging model that is not going to send those incentives. It is a massive missed opportunity. We are not probably going to see an opportunity to reform this in our generation, in a decade. It is a massive missed opportunity. But we will be supporting it for the reasons I outlined. Thank you.

It is my pleasure to rise and take what will probably be the final call on the Road User Charges Bill. On the basis that the words “59 votes in favour” do not constitute a speech, this is my first offering in the House for the 50th Parliament, so welcome back and congratulations on your respective appointments. I also welcome our new MPs. There were four more maiden speeches today—four fairly solid offerings, I thought, from the Labour members. I want to particularly acknowledge my parliamentary colleague from Dunedin North, Dr David Clark, who I know, despite our political differences, will work extremely hard for the city of Dunedin, and I look forward to working with him.

I have a new role of senior whip, and I am looking forward to the challenge that it is. I must just make a little point about my colleague Melissa Lee. She was not on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee last year, she is not on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee this year, and she is not rostered to speak in the House. Given that they are three reasons for her not to speak on this bill, I thought she did extremely well, at very short notice.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You’re not meant to actually say that in public. You’re not meant to sort of admit it in public.

It is a bit of mea culpa. It was going to come back to me at some stage.

I want to just touch on a comment that Mr Horan made, because I think it goes to the essence of the submissions we heard on the Road User Charges Bill in the select committee last year, of which, of course, I was a member. He said consultation is one thing; listening and taking heed is another matter. I accept the member’s point. He is a very intelligent fellow, I am sure, and will quickly come to understand, however, that consultation and consensus are two very different things, particularly politically. One can listen very, very carefully to often wildly divergent points of view, and then seek common ground as much as possible. But, certainly, with the road transport industry on this bill that was absolutely the case.

If there was any example of that, it was on that cold July morning in 2008 when I was standing in the Octagon, watching the amazing sight of a number of trucks rolling round and round it and stopping traffic because of the drivers’ concerns about the lack of consultation that was then perceived to be the case. I do appreciate Mrs King coming to the House and talking about those experiences, but I want to respectfully disagree with her about what the trucking industry was most upset about. Nobody likes a price increase, but they were prepared to accept it. What they did not appreciate was the fact that they had been told they were going to be given notice, and they were not. They were not given notice, because the Minister of Transport at the time, Mrs King, the previous year had given the industry 3 days’ notice, and, horror of horrors, the trucking industry and the people who needed to purchase road-user charges, or RUCs, did the rational thing: they went out and they purchased $30 million of charges.

Well, I see no harm in that. I am from that age where we, as children, listened around the radio to the Budget being presented in the 1970s by the Rt Hon Sir Robert Muldoon, who was also Minister of Finance. It was about the smokes and the petrol, was it not? It was done on a Thursday night, I think, in those days. I can tell you that by the time he got to the amount of excise that was going to be applied to fags, people were going straight down to the supermarket. We did not have many supermarkets in those days; it was the dairies and the service stations that filled up.

But here is what happens when road-user charges are paid in that way. The Crown has $30 million more in the bank, earning interest—money that it would not have got. So, yes, there is an offsetting implication to the fact that because the prices are going to go up people buy early. That is the normal, rational thing that people do. But the thing that got people most upset was the fact that they had been told that one thing would happen, and another thing happened.

I want to elaborate on that point, because of the criticisms that Mrs King made, completely irrationally, about the lack of a notice period in this bill. Well, she clearly has not read it. She was not on the select committee. Her colleagues Ms Fenton and the others on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee last year could have enlightened her, but did not. So I will point out clause 79, which provides that regulations made to specify rates of road-user charges come into force 42 days after they are gazetted. So the inference—well, it was not inferred; it was absolutely unchallenged; it was stated—that this Government is not giving road users plenty of notice of changes to the road-user charges is simply not true.

Nor, I have to say, is the continued wailing and gnashing of teeth from members on the other side at the concerns of the Motor Caravan Association. Indeed, the association did come to the committee and express very serious concerns about the implications of the changes in the road-user charges calculation for its members. Its concerns were completely wrongly placed. The officials of the Ministry of Transport worked with the Motor Caravan Association to alleviate those concerns, and, largely, they have gone away, except that the people listening to the debate in the Committee and in the third reading tonight will be completely confused. Well, I want to give them the assurance that the 270-something percent increases that the association says are going to come are not accurate, because the baseline is going to be recalibrated once the move from nominated weight to gross weight is brought in. That in itself is going to be much more administratively efficient. The amount of paperwork done in order for truck companies to record their actual nominated weight, and then to have it checked and policed on the side of the road, is incredibly administratively inefficient, and a gross weight system will be satisfactory to all but people who carry feathers or Pink Batts regularly in their trucks, because they go out full and they come back empty. If they are never close to their gross weights, maybe there will be an issue, but it is around the margins. The Ministry of Transport has worked very carefully with the industry to ensure that those changes affect as few people as possible.

So with those words it is my pleasure to commend this bill to the House. It is a good bill. It will improve road-user charges collection in this country.