Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill

I am pleased to be able to make a contribution on the Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill. This is a bill that is an important bill for some people. It is a particularly important bill, I understand, for farmers, because what it does is regularise what is currently an irregular situation. I think most of us who have had an association with farming communities know that there are some inconsistencies in the way that farm vehicles are treated and in the approach that is taken. In fact, this is dealing mainly with road-user charges and the treatment of road-user charges. The inconsistency goes much further than that. I think that many of us are aware of the problems with trusts and way that they deal with vehicles, and one of the questions I would like to ask the Minister is whether that is being considered as part of this exercise. There is a number of what might be described as Queen Street tractors, which are driven by university students in Dunedin, and I want to know what the road-user charges treatment is of those particular vehicles.

What I understand is that the objective of this bill is to get into a more regular situation. I think of any of us who have been involved in farming in any way. I spent 6 years of my life in Taumarunui, and, like most people, I used to do odd jobs on farms on occasions, especially after the period I was a teacher. We had relatively long holidays, and we did quite a lot of scrub-cutting, a bit of dagging, and quite a lot of haymaking. Probably the most important one in this particular case was haymaking, because when you are haymaking, especially in some of the side road areas, you tend to drive the tractors when you are going from one hay paddock to another, or when you are taking the hay back to the barn, as I was more likely to be doing. What you tend to do is drive on the road. There is a question then as to the legality of that, because the vehicles are not registered as road vehicles. The problem with our current legislation is that the road-user charge system drives off registration, and clearly there is a degree of avoidance going on.

I am slightly in two minds about it. Sometimes trying to make the world perfect and to get everything regularised and in line is the last refuge of officials and fools. But what is not clear is whether there is such a major loophole and a major revenue loss in this area that it is something we should actually be worried about. I would be interested in the member for Rangitīkei’s view on this as to whether it is worth regularising the situation, or whether the gap is so small that it is something that is not that important. This matter is, of course, a question of tractors and whether we—[Interruption] Well, the key proposal is to exempt fast tractors—that is, tractors—

💬 Louise Upston: We’re not going over this again surely?

Well, no, sorry—I am just relying on the regulatory impact statement—you know, tractors that go over 40 kilometres per hour. Back in the days of the Massey Fergusons, the ones that I used to drive, they never went over 40—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Fergie 28.

Well, the Assistant Speaker has more technical detail as to the quality of tractors than I do. But the old Massey Fergusons were very similar, though, to those that actually went to the South Pole, and probably at about the same pace. They certainly could not go over 40 kilometres per hour. I would just make the point that those tractors actually go at half the speed that Team New Zealand goes on the water. A fast tractor is quite a lot slower than a fast boat, and a wind-powered boat at that. Although calling the Team New Zealand yacht a boat is probably a bit marginal; I think it is closer to a hydroplane or a hydrofoil, or something similar to that. But what this does is it exempts fast tractors—that is, tractors operating over 40 kilometres per hour on the road—from road-user charges and subjects them to an annual charge in lieu of road-user charges to cover the costs that they impose on the road network. The real question I have is when you have a tractor with big fat tyres, as it tends to have—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: On the back.

Well, yes, they are big on the back; the driving wheels are big. The question that I have is, what is the damage to the road of that? I was involved, in fact, in the King Country in an incident with a bulldozer on one occasion. When that went across the road—out of Taumarunui, so it was State Highway 3—it made pretty tremendous damage. It was a bulldozer on a bit of soft tarseal, and it was very, very clear where the bulldozer had been and there were repairs, and there were costs involved in it. But what damage does a tractor with fat tyres do to a road? In fact, I cannot see any. So the question here is whether we are setting up an annual charge system in lieu of road-user charges that is actually unnecessary, because there is a question of whether in fact, as is the want of this Government, it will spend more on the cost of collection than the actual cost of the problem. I really hate to quote Ruth Richardson—

💬 Hon Member: No, don’t.

—but I will. I will—no, I will. What is the mischief here? What is the mischief caused by a fast tractor with big tyres going on a road? Colin King knows it does not rip up the road, because the tyres are fat, they are relatively low-pressured—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Of course it does. You know, down Te Atatū Road.

No, the city boy from west Auckland has probably never driven a tractor in his life. The city boy from west Auckland, who used to have potential, has probably never—

💬 Hon Member: When? When?

He did. He did. I can remember when he was the deputy leader to Winston. He was loyal to Winston—he was loyal to Winston. Then he was loyal to Jenny.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Full names.

Oh, sorry—oh sorry. The honourable member from west Auckland somewhere.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Te Atatū.

Te Atatū.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Because the local member doesn’t do any work, somebody’s got to do it.

Well, no, no, no. That is a member who has lost a marginal seat three or four times—three or four times. Never—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Who won the party vote?

That member is nearly as bright as Paul Quinn and he keeps on losing the seat. But getting to the issue of the tractors, I agree with the other suggestion that all unregistered vehicles—that is, vehicles exempt from registration or not required to be registered or operating under trade plates—should, in fact, be exempt from road-user charges. There is some logic to that. The only question I have is that if vehicles have the dealer’s plates on and are running up and down the country, should they be exempt from road-user charges? But I am sure that is something that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee will consider.