Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That statement is published under the authority of the House.

I move, That the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

This is a very significant day for transport policy in New Zealand and for the work that we have ahead of us as a Government, a Parliament, and a country to meet the great challenge of decarbonising our transport system and our economy. That’s because, with the passage of this legislation, we will finally be taking meaningful action to reduce emissions coming from New Zealand’s vehicle fleet, which has been the largest increasing source of emissions across the entire New Zealand economy.

Since 1990, emissions from our vehicle fleet have increased by 90 percent, and that is far and away the biggest increase of any sector—a bigger increase than agriculture, a bigger increase than energy, a bigger increase than industry, bigger than any other sector. One of the reasons for that is because there has been a total lack of legislative or regulatory leadership in this area. New Zealand, up until today, is one of only three countries in the OECD, alongside Australia and Russia, that don’t have a vehicle emissions standard. And that is one of the reasons why we have one of the dirtiest vehicle fleets in the world. It is one of the reasons why we have those increasing emissions. It’s one of the reasons why we have such terrible air quality in our cities. It’s one of the reasons why our vehicles cost more for Kiwi motorists to run, because of their sheer inefficiency. It’s very, very clear that, as the rest of the world continues to increase its level of ambition, as the rest of the world moves to bring cleaner cars into their fleet, if we don’t take action here in New Zealand, we will become, even more than we are now, the dumping ground for the dirtiest vehicles in the world.

What I said very clearly at the beginning of this address is that there’s something here about this House and all parties in this House backing up our fine words with action, because this House, nearly unanimously, passed climate-change legislation to establish the independent Climate Change Commission, to set the goal towards reaching net zero by 2050, to say that we wanted the commission to tell us how to bring emissions down by sector. Inherent in that was the fact that we would then accept that advice and do something about it. Well, we’ve set up the commission, an expert group led by Dr Rod Carr, which has engaged extensively with the scientific literature and consulted with the public. And they’ve come back, and they’ve told us the steps we need to take to get down to net zero. They are very clear that we need to substantially decarbonise the transport sector if we want to achieve that. If we don’t decarbonise transport, we don’t reach net zero.

So, to every other member of this House who voted for net zero and voted for the Climate Change Commission, my question for you in this debate is this: at what point are you going to do something about it? On this side of the House, we will, because this is a piece of legislation that will have a major impact on the emissions coming out of our transport sector. Approximately 12 megatons—that’s 12 million tons—of emissions will be avoided through the clean car package that is contained in the legislation before the House today. That is a major contribution to the urgent task that we have of decarbonising our transport system. As I say, we have to back up the words; we have to back up the votes with actually doing something. The time for sitting on our hands on one of the biggest issues of our time is over.

I say in particular to colleagues in the National Party that, having done the right thing in the previous term and working with parties on this side of the House on climate change legislation and on the net-zero goals, they are now running perilously close to becoming the climate change deniers of our time. Denialism used to be about denying the scientific consensus for climate change, and they had plenty of members who took that view up. The new denialism is saying, “Oh, yes, we accept it.” but finding every excuse in the world to ever do anything about it, and that is how they are positioning themselves in their consistent opposition to any measure that actually meaningfully reduces emissions, including this one. My challenge to them is: if they’re not going to front up and actually support these policies, tell us what the policies are that you would deliver that would reduce the same amount of emissions, because, whenever that question is asked, we hear the deafening silence. From members on that side of the House, we hear their support for electric vehicles, for low-carbon vehicles, but they do nothing. Their policies failed in the last term, and doing nothing will continue to fail.

It actually was extraordinary to me when I read through submissions from the vehicle sector on this legislation—and they’ve had their critiques; let’s be honest about that—that virtually every part of the vehicle sector in New Zealand supports action in this area. The clean car discount is supported by both major importing associations and the AA. The clean car standard is supported by one of the major vehicle importing associations. The National Party’s position is actually a more conservative, more aggressive, more backwards looking one than the industry itself, which we are regulating as a result of this piece of legislation. That just illustrates the, frankly, dinosaur position that they continue to take on this issue. What emphasises this even more is the fact that the first steps of the clean car package, which were implemented from 1 July, are already shown to be working. Since the implementation of the clean car discount, the average sales of zero-emissions vehicles per month have roughly tripled. They have roughly tripled. And approximately one in four electric vehicles on the road today has been purchased since the clean car discount took effect. As a result of those policies, the new-car fleet being imported into New Zealand has already achieved at a national level the 2023 clean car standards under this legislation. That is how successful and effective the clean car discount scheme has been. We always knew that would be the case, because time and time again Kiwis say they want access to cleaner vehicles.

What this legislation does is to facilitate that in two ways. The first is through the clean car standard. The standard is about making sure that we actually have a vehicle emissions standard, like nearly every other country, for new vehicles coming into New Zealand. It sets targets which get more ambitious year by year, and it enables importers with considerable flexibility to meet those targets by banking, borrowing, and being able to trade their credits if they are not able to achieve. These schemes have been shown internationally to make a big difference. The most important thing they do—and importers already tell me this—is they enable New Zealand importers to go to their head offices and actually get the stock of clean vehicles here, because there is now a regulatory direction, like every other country. Previously that was not in place, whereas other countries did have it, and so importers found it hard to get the stock of clean vehicles here that Kiwis want. So it’s already making a difference in that respect. The clean car discount then accompanies it and helps to stimulate demand by incentivising Kiwi consumers to swap the dirtier vehicles for the cleaner vehicles. As I say, that has already been shown to be working, and it works in country after country after country internationally.

There are two very important things to note about this package as well. The first is the abatement rate. The abatement rate means: how much does it cost us to reduce a ton of carbon under this policy? The answer is that, actually, under this package, New Zealand saves money for every ton of carbon that we avoid. That is because of the massive fuel savings that occur as we transition our fleet to low-emissions and no-emissions vehicles. So not only are we cleaning up the air, not only are we reducing our emissions, which Kiwis want to do, not only are we making it cheaper for them to fill up at the pump; we’re doing that all at a saving to the country overall. Secondly, the clear international evidence is that these policies are progressive; they actually benefit people with the least the most. That’s because, as more efficient vehicles come into the fleet, they offer people massive savings on the maintenance and the running of vehicles—massive savings. You think about the lifetime costs of running a vehicle, and they are slashed when a family is able to own a clean, efficient vehicle. That is going to be of huge benefit to New Zealanders.

This is a big change—it’s one that we’ve been talking about for a long time—but it’s actually not a radical change internationally. This is about New Zealand catching up. It’s about us catching up and actually doing the things to tackle climate change that other countries are doing. It’s about us catching up with the automotive industry, which in country after country, manufacturer after manufacturer is already shifting to cleaner vehicles. So this about how we do the transition and how we make it more affordable for Kiwis to get into the clean cars that they want so that they can play their part in tackling climate change. On this side of the House, we’re proud of the change that that will make, and I ask other members of the House to do the right thing, to put our words into action as a House, and to support this important piece of legislation. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

If it looks like a tax, and it smells like a tax, and it quacks like a tax, it is a tax! That’s what this bill is doing. The Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill is a car tax. It is about increasing costs on New Zealanders and that is what it is at its very essence. The Minister stands up and talks about what he thinks this bill is going to do. He even got to the point where he said it’s progressive—it’s progressive! Well, I can tell you, Minister, it’s actually regressive. It’s actually going to send many New Zealanders backwards, simply paying more for the vehicles that they need rather than actually helping them get into cleaner vehicles.

The other thing this piece of legislation does is it gives absolute power to the Minister of Transport to dictate to the car industry what cars, what subsidies, what taxes, what fees, what charges. He has complete control. There is unlimited regulatory powers being transferred in this piece of legislation to the Minister of Transport. So he might want to stand up and talk to us about how this is going to improve the industry, but actually he is the one who is actually getting all of those powers. Rather than working with the industry, he is on a massive power grab with this piece of legislation. It is an ideological bill rather than actually a pragmatic and practical bill which will actually make a difference.

There are so many concerns in this piece of legislation, and the first point is around the increased costs, because at its very essence, what this piece of legislation will be doing is increasing the costs of buying a new vehicle, for the vast majority of New Zealanders. This piece of legislation gives the Minister of Transport the ability to set fees or charges for vehicles in New Zealand. And he says, “Well, OK, I’m then going to subsidise these other vehicles to try and reduce emissions.” But the reality is that people don’t always have the choice, and there are many New Zealanders who don’t have the choice. We spoke about this at length in the committee stage. We spoke about this at length during the select committee. We talked about the realities of New Zealanders’ lives and how actually at the moment there is not the ability for them to have a choice so that they can get a car which has a subsidy rather than one which they have to pay a tax.

I think that is no better demonstrated than in the instance of our farmers and our tradies, who have no ability but to pay the tax. The Motor Industry Association was very clear: this piece of legislation is going to be increasing the cost of vehicles by 15 to 20 percent in New Zealand. I just think it’s incredible, some of the misinformation which is getting peddled in this debate. In fact, the Prime Minister went on the AM Show and said, “Within the next 12 to 24 months, we’re hoping the likes of Toyota are talking about bringing in EV utes.” Well, only the next day Toyota had to come out and say, “I’d like to reiterate, we do not have any plans for a battery electric HiLux in our line-up in the next 18 to 24 months.” And then they went on to say it is irresponsible to suggest that customers stop buying non - electric vehicles (EVs) immediately until there’s an electric option available. The range and volumes of EVs needed to meet demand is simply not available, and many customers still need a vehicle to transport their family or operate their business.

So the very reality of this piece of legislation means that tens of thousands of New Zealanders [Interruption]—will simply have no choice. And I hear the members on the other side saying “Well, why do they buy utes?” This is the arrogance, the absolute arrogance of the members on that side, where the Prime Minister even got up and said, “Well, they’re all purchasing it for illegitimate purposes.” That’s right, they are not purchasing those utes for the right purposes. And of course, that’s all the chardonnay socialists on the other side of the House, who want to tell you and your family what type of vehicle you should drive and what you should be able to purchase. I just think that’s frankly awful, but that’s this Government. They want to tell you how and what kind of vehicle you should be able to purchase.

The reality, as I said, is that these new vehicles—in fact, the new utes, which are electric vehicles—will not be coming into the market. It says here—this is what the Motor Industry Association says—“Our expectation is plug-in hybrid utes … might become more widely available by 2025 and full battery electric utes … after that.” So until then, what’s the choice for a farmer or a tradie? Pay the tax—pay the tax. That is essentially what this Government is saying to our hard-working farmers and tradies.

💬 Maureen Pugh: What’s the answer?

And what about what—well, a very good point from Maureen Pugh. She knows a thing or two about farming. How are you going to drive your Tesla or your EV around the farm? It just doesn’t work. The other point being raised on the other side is “Well, we’re talking about new vehicles.” So now what we’ve got is a point here where the Government members are saying, “Well, just tell those farmers: hold on to your existing ute, hold on to your existing ute until you can buy an EV.” Yes, well, hold on to your existing ute until after 2025, and, for instance, if your used vehicle has already done 400,000 kilometres and needs replacing—and, by the way, it emits a huge amount more than if you went and bought a new HiLux today—actually, it’s better to hold on to that.

That comes to another problem with this piece of legislation. It isn’t going to achieve the reduction in emissions which the Minister is wanting. What it is going to do is instead mean that New Zealanders hold on to their existing vehicles for longer or effectively they just pay the higher price, particularly where they don’t have a choice.

Then that brings me to the last point, which is actually that, effectively, it just provides a wealth transfer. The evidence is clear, and the Minister talked about how many people have taken up the offer of the subsidies—well, everyone loves a subsidy, don’t they? Everyone loves a subsidy—

💬 Hon Member: Except those who pay.

Except for those who pay; that’s correct. And in fact, all those people who went out there and bought their new EV—that’s the so-called success—well, they were probably just waiting for this subsidy to come. So the numbers of course were going to increase because they were not going to purchase a vehicle until they could get the subsidy, which the Government then brought in.

But the reality is this is effectively a wealth transfer. Instead of this Government, which I thought was about being egalitarian and trying to help those most in need, it’s about taking money from those who have no choices, taking money from people whose actual choice of purchasing a new vehicle might actually be only within up to $10,000, not to be able to purchase something like a new Tesla of $60,000. And it’s transferring the money from them to subsidise the person who can already afford to purchase a $50,000 or $60,000 vehicle. That’s why this Government is actually the chardonnay socialist Government, because they talk a big game about trying to lift people out of poverty and help those in need. But every single time it comes to actually implementing policy, it is the very, very opposite.

What we actually need in this space to reduce emissions is we need pragmatic, practical policies which actually make a difference. It’s about working with the industry and working to make sure the standards and making sure that the reduction in emissions is actually something where they can actually meet the demand which is needed. We have to realise we’re a very small market of new vehicles. Other countries have much more market and much more demand in terms of what they actually can require for their markets. So the reality is you have to work with the industry, you have to invest in the network in terms of the charging networks, something which National actually invested in. This Government talks a big game, but at the end of the day, all the ideas that they come up with ultimately end in a three-letter word, which is “tax”. National will not support this bill.

It’s terrible to be locked into a time warp; terrible to be locked having to defend the status quo. Actually, I’m pleased to see that not all of the National Party are locked into that status quo. Just before this debate began, we actually saw some progress that actually takes into account new technology. We have agreed, as a House, that we can actually conduct a virtual Parliament. Now, that’s something, as we heard in that debate, that was unforeseen, something that would’ve been incomprehensible some time ago. But things move on, and, as the chairman of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that has had the privilege of taking this bill through the House, and listening to some arguments for and against, I’m actually convinced that this is another bill whose time has come.

I hear those opposite, fearful, speaking on behalf of those poor old farmers who won’t have utes anymore. Well, that’s not true, as we all know. In fact, having grown up on farms, having grown up in the agricultural community myself, I’ve seen the changes in my own time. It shows that the agricultural community are probably more adaptable than anyone else in New Zealand and will very quickly get into their stride with this change. In fact, some of the fears I’ve heard is that these things don’t go very fast. What I’ll challenge anyone to do is to get into one of these fully electric vehicles. In the words of someone very close to me, they said they go like cut cats.

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: I said that.

In fact, the performance of those—no, it wasn’t the current acting whip, who is not very dear to me; it was actually someone much dearer, I might say.

So this is, as I said before, an idea whose time has actually come. During the select committee process, we did hear from car importers—not manufacturers directly, of course—who were concerned that the supply of vehicles necessary would be impeded; in fact, wouldn’t be able to keep up. But when they were actually pushed on it, what they did say—and the Minister previously mentioned this—is that by having these requirements, it strengthened their leverage with their parent companies in Japan or in Europe that they were dealing with, because it actually meant that when they were actually putting their hand up for a greater supply of these vehicles, they were actually given the supply.

So while I’ll say that many of our submitters were a little concerned that the relatively comfortable world that they are in now would be upset, I think when they were actually pushed on questions, they all understood that, yes, there was a lot of innovation happening in all their industries. Unfortunately, many of them weren’t in a position to actually talk about it if they knew, because, as we all know, with the commercial imperatives, none of these companies are going to talk about where they’re at until they actually get to launch these vehicles. No one is going to give away that commercial imperative, that commercial advantage, they have until their products are actually ready to come to New Zealand.

So, as I said before, this is a piece of legislation that those who are standing opposite who are so passionately speaking against—I know in Opposition your job is to oppose, but be very careful because often these are the sort of speeches that are thrown back at you if and when you ever do become Government. And I rather suspect that, particularly the previous speaker, that’s the sort of negative speech that he will probably regret in time to come, because we are entering an era—just in the last month, look at the flooding that’s happened. You can’t separate the clear climate change evidence that is happening before our very eyes. For some reason, there’s those who would say that, yes, there’s been a whole lot more heavy rain events, heavy wind events, and there is clear evidence of the climate change, than there are those—I won’t say that those opposite are deniers, but “regretters” would be a better way to describe it. Because the reality of it is that in their own electorates, they all know that we have to make these changes, and these are the sort of changes in transport that we can make here, we can make today. Because if we don’t make these changes, then we will be letting down those that come after us.

So, those, with this legislation, who are now tasked with the, I suppose, implementation, I would say who are the importers, those who are going to continue to be able to import high-emitting vehicles—and if you’d listened to the previous speaker, you would’ve thought that all of a sudden the supply of utes into New Zealand was going to be curtailed on day one. No, those vehicles will still be able to be imported into New Zealand. You still will be able to get the utility of your choice. Yes, your car or your partner at home who drives the electric vehicle, the rebate they get will cancel out pretty much the extra fee that will be placed upon the ute, and that will be, generally, a cost-neutral exercise. And I know the next speaker will probably leap up, because I said that last time and he saw that as some sort of concession.

No, it’s not, because what it does is—as I was speaking to an individual at Fieldays last time we were able to have Fieldays, who in the midst of abuse, I asked him what sort of vehicle his wife drove and he actually talked about the fact that she had just bought an electric vehicle. When it was pointed out to him that it would be a cost-neutral exercise for his household, he actually looked into the air and said, “Oh, I hadn’t realised that.” So perhaps some more honesty opposite in the way that some of the constituents are being spoken to, might just make things a little less traumatic for some of those who somehow believe that they are going to be forced to be driving electric everything on day one. That’s not the case.

This legislation is so that the transition we’ll be making is now given the necessary legislative design, and it will in fact improve the whole of the situation we’re trying to do environmentally that we simply must do, not only to keep to our international obligations but actually obligations to the next generation. I commend this to the House, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. If ever there was an example of truth in the old adage that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, it was in the speech that we heard from the Minister of Transport in this third reading debate. Now, we have a Minister who is very full of his own importance, and he is determined to follow the ideological bent of his party at every possible opportunity. He never misses a chance to do that. But, just as the last speaker, Greg O’Connor, did, he conflates an issue that relates to climate action and the lowering of our transport emissions with tax and using punitive taxes to actually try and encourage or change behaviour. Now, on this side of the House, we know that that doesn’t work.

Actually, the most disappointing aspect of this piece of legislation is that it puts New Zealanders against New Zealanders, and this has become a hallmark of this Government: divide, division, pitching one group of New Zealanders against another. So in order to appease the demands of their flash friends in Grey Lynn, they are going to punish vast numbers of New Zealanders who don’t have choice and who can’t afford it, and those people who don’t have choice and can’t afford it are going to be forced to pay a premium for the vehicles of their choice so that free money can be given to the Labour Party’s flash friends in Grey Lynn to buy their expensive electric cars.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I’m a great fan and an advocate and a long-term owner of an electric car, and I am a great convert and ambassador for them. The previous member said that they are cost-neutral, but it’s actually better than that. They are far superior to being cost-neutral; they are cost-positive in terms of outcome. But it takes a little bit of time because you have to get over the hump, if you like, of the initial capital cost. Once that is over, then what happens is that the cost of running it and the cost of maintenance very quickly provide a better return than on a fossil-fuelled internal combustion vehicle.

But the problem with all that from this Government’s point of view is that right at the minute, there isn’t the range of choice that is available. I would love it if there was, and there will be soon. There will be in years to come. There will be in years to come, but right now, as this legislation is going through this Parliament, those choices are not available. So this is, as my colleague Simeon Brown said, really an exercise in wealth redistribution. That goes to the very core and heart of Labour Party socialist philosophy and idealism, and that’s always what they’re trying to do.

What they could have been doing, if they were thoughtful and careful about it, is they could have been targeting a programme of incentives that didn’t pitch one group of New Zealanders against another group of New Zealanders. They could have been pitching a range of imaginative incentives to middle-income New Zealanders, because that’s where the real economic benefit is.

It’s not people like members in this House, who can afford to buy a $60,000 or a $70,000 vehicle, but the impact on a low or medium income family that has high maintenance costs and high fuel costs on an old dunger would be much enhanced if they were into a reasonably priced electric vehicle (EV), because the maintenance would be less. The cost of running and driving and fuelling that vehicle would be far less, and that would be something that I would have thought the Labour Party would embrace. But, no, they have deferred again to their flash friends in Grey Lynn and other parts of the trendy suburbs of Auckland who like to ride on slow trams along Dominion Road and who sit and drink chardonnay. They like that.

But this is classic Labour Party, “Big State knows best” big thinking, and “We will tell you how to spend your money and what cars you should buy, what vehicles you should buy, and we will tell you from the balcony of the Beehive. By issuing proclamations and passing legislation in this Parliament, we will teach you how you should live.” Now, Helen Clark got into exactly the same kind of philosophical problem when she tried to mandate low-flow showers and energy-efficient light bulbs, and that should have been a lesson to this Labour Government, who are now so out of touch with middle New Zealand. People don’t like to have a finger waved at them and be told how they should make purchasing decisions.

💬 Stuart Smith: Nanny State—nanny State.

It is nanny State, as Stuart Smith says. It’s very nanny State. Helen Clark paid a price for that, and so too will this Government, because it’s not just in this area that they are doing it. It’s a range of issues that they adopt at every possible opportunity.

The Minister talked a little bit about the unanimity across this Parliament in terms of the broad direction of climate initiatives and our pathway towards Net Zero 2050, and the Minister is absolutely right: this Parliament passed without dissension that legislation, and that was a good thing. But the real issue is how that pathway is traversed and what actions are taken. Yes, the independent Climate Change Commission makes recommendations, but it’s up to the politicians of the day and the Government of the day to either accept or reject that advice that comes from the Climate Change Commission. Now, that was why it was set up. It was set up deliberately that way—that’s why we supported it; presumably, that’s why the Government supported it—because we wanted to have independent advice. Nothing wrong with that, but the final decisions are made by the politicians and Government of the day.

Now, in this case this Government has taken an ideological and philosophical approach that they are going to mandate decision making for New Zealanders, and take out of the hands of New Zealanders the decisions that they usually should fairly and properly make, by fiddling with market forces. They’re robbing one sector of New Zealanders—the productive sector—and offering free money to another sector who want to buy and can afford to buy expensive electric cars. I think and we on this side of the House think that that philosophy is wrong. It’s not the question of lowering our emissions that’s wrong, it’s not the pathway towards net zero that is wrong, it’s not the decarbonisation of our economy that is wrong, it is not the transition from molecules to electrons that is wrong; it’s the way this Government is seeking to do it that is wrong. That’s why we are opposing it, and that is a matter that this Government simply fails to grasp.

In so doing, perversely, they have actually got to a point now where a whole lot of New Zealanders, because they feel they are being punished or being forced into decisions that they would prefer to make themselves, have now become anti-EV, and I’ve noticed that as an owner and a driver of an EV. The mood has changed significantly because there are a whole lot of people who feel that they are being pushed, cajoled, and put through some kind of cattle race into a decision that they have no real control over. So the difficulty is that we now, as I say, have these two groups of New Zealanders divided, and this has become a hallmark of this Government.

Now, the Minister mentioned that—surprise, surprise—the number of EV purchases has gone up since the scheme came into effect in July of last year. Well, these are people who had been waiting for four years for this Government to do it. The Government signalled this four years ago, so what happened was that the demand for EVs dropped off significantly until the free money was available, and why wouldn’t it? Why wouldn’t people wait? Well, if there’s an opportunity to save $8,000 on a new EV, they would be crazy not to wait, and so that’s exactly what they did. They waited. But what the Minister didn’t tell the House was that in the period of time until the punitive taxes on utes and other vehicles, for instance, that are affected by this piece of legislation come into effect, what’s happening is that those vehicles are being bought in massively large numbers as people try to get ahead of the curve and the imposition of the extra tax.

This is a Government that takes a philosophical view. They have, when it comes to pretty much any policy issue, only three options: to make it compulsory, to tax it, or to ban it. This is an absolutely classic example of a Labour Government wanting to tax, ban, or make compulsory behaviour that should actually be left to the decision making of ordinary New Zealanders, who are perfectly capable of making good decisions for themselves.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be speaking on the third reading of this bill, the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill. On the weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting the Tranzit Coachlines Group, who have a depot in Rongotai, and I was there with Daran Ponter, the chair of the regional council for Wellington. There we had Paul and Keven Snelgrove take us through their electric fleet of buses, and, really, what was more exciting was the repurposing of diesel buses into electric buses.

Look, these two chaps have been in the business of running buses since day dot. They talked about their time setting up the business, through their family history in the Wairarapa, and they themselves coming across to the new age of electric vehicles. I know, when they first came in, they won the tender for supplying the bus fleet for our Wellington region. They said, “Look, we want to test electric—the whole electrification of the fleet in Island Bay.”—for those who have been there, one of the best suburbs in New Zealand, I have to say. In Island Bay, they’ve developed something that they themselves put together, and I raise this because what I’ve seen there is two chaps that came from an industry that you could only have diesel in, in terms of bus transport, but have made that transition for themselves and for their consumers and customers.

It was good to hear their views, and after being in here for just a short time I thought some people really do need to get out into their communities and listen to what’s happening out there, and talk to the people who have been in the industry and who are doing their own—I guess we use terms like “transition”. So they are positive about it, they are reflecting the change, and they are working globally with providers all round Asia, who have really come to New Zealand and put together a bespoke technology. They’ve got some buses from bus companies in China. But, really, they’ve invented their own because they believe that we can do it here. It’s innovative, it’s unique, it’s different, it supplies jobs to Kiwis, and it utilises what’s here. We have an interesting terrain in Wellington City, and so developing a bus fleet and electrifying it at certain points are all important. But I raise this because they are also doing their bit. And so I’ve kept them in the loop with the work that’s being done here, because we know this is important; we know it’s a contribution. So I’m cautious when I hear there’s some ideology or some politics behind this, because I’ve seen electric vehicles with different party logos on in our own basement, and I know that people are there, I know people are politicising this, but really there is no need to. It does contribute, ultimately, to that urgent task of decarbonising the transport system. This is our contribution to the fleet.

I’m not going to say too much more, because there is a positive uptake—look, it’s already happening, and we will see this happen more, more, and more. It will be Kiwis who respond. Sometimes people have been sheepish about admitting that they own such a vehicle. I would say “Be proud!” There’s no need to be; it’s going to happen. There will be chargers put in place, thanks to funding from central and local government. It’s going to become the norm. This is quite normal. I’m simply going to commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe. It’s a pleasure to give my third—I believe—and final speech on the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill. I guess it’s been quite an interesting process and a privilege also to get a chance to sit on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee alongside my parliamentary colleagues, and acknowledging that this bill was enabled by my colleague Julie Anne Genter, who laid the groundwork and thankful for the Minister, Michael Wood, for carrying it through in this term.

I think it’s clear to say that what this bill will do is stop making New Zealand a dumping ground for polluting vehicles. That is important. We do not want to become the place where industry knows they can throw away polluting vehicles that ultimately will be creating waste and emissions locally. It will also give options to New Zealanders to purchase cheaper vehicles, and especially in the second-hand market.

It’s been really interesting, though, hearing members from the right-hand side, and particularly the National Party, who have waxed lyrical about how this bill is going to tax those working-class people. Because as many of us have stated, it’s not low-income people who are buying new vehicles. Low-income people have the most to gain from this bill.

I think we’d be kidding ourselves if we said that this bill was a silver bullet to address the challenges that climate change presents, especially in the transport sector where so many of our emissions are coming from. The truth is that this is one lever we must pull in order to address the climate crisis. On top of this, we should be looking at things like free fares, an intra-city regional rail network, a shift in how we fund our transport infrastructure, as well as many other solutions that are yet to come. So the National Party can talk all they want about their supposed pragmatic solutions to the climate crisis, but at every stage of the way they’ve shown us that they are willing to spend billions on polluting infrastructure that will increase emissions, and oppose the solutions that we need to support our communities to meet the challenges that the climate crisis presents, as well as providing them equitable options to move around. It’d be great if members on my opposite side were again talking about cheaper fares for public transport or other forms of subsidies that do help low-income people.

So it is a pleasure to finally see this bill through the House and to start now being able to discuss the many other solutions that will bring about a much more impactful reduction in emissions in our transport industry. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to talk on behalf of my fellow colleague Mr Court and share rather a lacklustre performance. I know he’d be better at delivery here and give an illuminating one; not the dreary one that we saw from the member Greg O’Connor over there. This bill speaks to mollycoddling one part of society and impugning another. I can just offer a very quick anecdote, if I may, when I was at the Fieldays down in Mystery Creek about six or seven months ago—going back a fair way now. Look, there was all manner of vehicles there, as you could well imagine. And rather unfortunately, it was more often than not the last electric vehicle (EV) left standing when many of the utilities, which now are going to be impugned with this, had long since gone.

ACT supports the concept that making polluters pay for their carbon emissions actually will help reduce our emissions across the board, but, equally so, New Zealand’s emissions are capped. Any emissions reduction plan, by the standards imposed by this bill, will not reduce a single ton of carbon and almost invariably it creates an opportunity for emissions leakage into other sectors. We’ve got a cap here in New Zealand. All it will do is literally shift the onus on to somebody else.

The state of this bill, as proposed, is to “achieve a rapid reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from light vehicles imported into New Zealand”. Notably, manufacturers who submitted on the bill described international supply constraints. I think that’s a wide point here. This technology’s currently not available in many parts of the automotive sector. It will also mean that there will be no sufficient low-emissions vehicles in the near and potentially foreseeable future. Equally notable, with many countries, there is also a left-hand drive market—I’m sorry, a small amount of countries, I beg your pardon. We think of New Zealand, we think of Australia, we think of the United Kingdom and Japan. The manufacturers are now presented with a significant problem. It’s abundantly clear to the ACT Party that this bill is purely ideological and whilst well intentioned—and I think we’ve got to make that call; this is very well intentioned—it’s purely ideological, however, and it will fail on deliverables both for consumers and the desired environmental outcomes, and I think that’s the one thing that we really have to converse about and debate here today.

Treasury, in its own advice released under the Official Information Act, asked if time frames and when standards come into force will actually be delayed, and they would be significantly because of the international supply constraints around low-emissions vehicles and their availability. A lot of this technology—I think we’ve got to be honest here—in the rural sector is six, seven years away and, by virtue, when it is available is going to be exorbitantly expensive. Sadly, it seems to malign one part of the transport sector and its users with another. It’s picking winners and losers. And arguably on this side of the House, I think we’d agree with that statement. Tradies and farmers will fall victim by this piece of legislation.

These are tools. I mean, I can quite happily tell the members on the other side of the House, I have a utility and it wouldn’t be an EV one, and it certainly wouldn’t be an EV one, I would wager, for the next 10 years. There’s simply nothing available that the average farmer or tradie could afford. The bill introduces unnecessary regulations that will be difficult and costly to comply with and add further additional costs to everyday Kiwi families. I think that’s been well canvassed on this side of the House.

Submitters also noted that the lower-income families will inadvertently be targeted by this legislation. There are everyday Kiwis that won’t have this technology—and I see the member shaking her head over there. I’d like to present her with the question of what technology she thinks would be readily available for anything under $50,000.

In summary, this bill is merely ideological. We support the premise of it, but we can’t see how it works and categorically, whilst well intentioned, it will absolutely fail, based on the emissions trading scheme that we currently sit in. ACT totally opposes this bill.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak, Madam Speaker, and it’s always a privilege and honour to get up, not only as the member for the Ōtaki electorate but certainly as a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. We heard from 135 submitters on this bill, the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill.

We know that this bill will increase the supply in the variety of zero- to low-emission cars. We also know that it will increase the demand for these cars, which, for our low-income families, is going to help, because that will lower the cost of the cars, as well as the clean-car discount that you get as well. And that is amazing for our low-income families. We are going to make sure, with this bill, that New Zealand, our beautiful country, Aotearoa, is no longer a dumping ground for the rest of the world’s dirty fleet—that they all have clean-car standards or legislation for but we don’t. So that fixes this; that puts us in the same spending field as the rest of them in making sure that we are looking after our country and doing something about our climate change.

This clean-car discount that goes with this bill—$8,625. And I can tell you, coming from a low-income family, that that is an awesome amount to be able to get a discount on a car that, when you do get it, you get to save money on petrol, you get to put more money in our family budgets, and that is going to make a massive difference—while we also can feel we’re making sure we’re doing our bit to save Papatūānuku as well.

This bill is another example of this Labour Government doing what it said it would: delivering while looking after our people, looking after Papatūānuku, and making sure we’re doing our bit in terms of climate change. For that, I’m really proud and I commend this bill to the House.

The Hon David Bennett—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill is a failure in policy on behalf of the Government. There are a number ways that it is a failure. First of all, there just aren’t the quantity of vehicles out there to achieve its purpose. If we look at the ute market—and the “ute tax” is what this bill was described as—there are no alternatives. There are no alternatives coming in the near future. The only alternative the Minister could come up with when we were considering this bill at the select committee was a prototype that had come out from America and had not actually got to production yet. That was his view of something that was going to be in the market, on the ground, in two years’ time. It’s a dream. It just will not happen. All this bill is going to do is mean that people will pay more for those vehicles, and that will increase inflation in this country and continue the process that we’re seeing in this country at the moment.

Fundamentally, it is wrong. We are in the Australian-Japanese car market. That’s where our vehicles come from. This bill thinks that we’re in the European market. In the Australian-Japanese market the movement is towards hybrids and better fuel uses. In the European market—fair enough—there is a bigger move towards electric vehicles, but they are not conditioned for the New Zealand market. They do not do utes, for example, and they are not readily available here. That last speaker, Terisa Ngobi, spoke about an $8,000 discount for her people. Well, they’ve to spend $70,000 to get the $8,000. Not many of her people can actually spend $70,000. Not many of any people can spend $70,000 on a car just to get an $8,000 discount.

When we look at this bill, there’s another part of it where the left will keep on saying that it’s a dumping ground for cars in New Zealand. Well, the reality is that this bill will create an environment where people will hold on to those second-hand Japanese imports. They will hold on to those older cars because they can’t afford to buy a new one. It will actually achieve the opposite. What they are actually doing here is constraining New Zealanders to hold on to an older fleet. What we should be doing is taking advantage of the new technology around the world to get a better fleet, and that is the approach that would be much more sensible and would achieve our goals.

Another thing they say is that roads are the problem, and you hear that public transport is the answer. That is complete and utter rubbish. Most of New Zealand is based on a roading network. All of productive New Zealand, effectively, is based on a roading network, and without options in the electric vehicle fleet for that market, it makes it very difficult for people to be able to achieve their economic purposes. Also, electric cars, over time, will have to go on roads, and you need to invest in your roading network to enable that to happen.

What has happened here is there’s actually been a failure by the Government to understand what they’re doing. It’s classic leftism policy. They make an idea up and they say it’s going to happen, but it actually hurts the very people they say they try to represent. The people on the lowest incomes won’t be able to take advantage of this. The people that are academics or politicians who sit in this room will be able to take advantage of this subsidy, and it’s just another wealth transfer to the rich, from the poor, that you see under a Labour Government.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

They may laugh but it’s a reality—look at the housing market example, as well. What would be a better approach? That is something we need to look at. Let’s actually invest in some renewable electricity for New Zealand. Under this Government, renewable electricity generation has decreased as a percentage of New Zealand production. If we really want to do something about electric vehicles (EVs), let’s make sure they run on renewable electricity and not coal coming in from Indonesia. If we really want to do something about EVs, let’s invest in an EV network around New Zealand so you can actually power up these vehicles when they come in. If you really want to do something in this area, why don’t we look at alternative fuels, where you can use a mixture of fuel? That’s what our fuel companies want to be able to do. If you really want to do something about this, you would actually look at using hybrids and other vehicles in the Japanese and Australian market that are actually more fuel efficient, more energy efficient, and more environmentally friendly, but the opposite is happening in this case.

I call Tangi Utikere—five minutes.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, thank you. It’s a pleasure to take a brief call. I guess, what I would like to start my contribution in the House with this afternoon is that we don’t make any excuses on this side of the House for what this piece of legislation will deliver. I’ve been sitting here this afternoon listening to the contributions from some members opposite. We don’t hate on the people of Grey Lynn here on this side of the House, we don’t hate on those that choose to drink chardonnay. But it seems to me that there are excuses, a lack of ideas, coming from members opposite, and it’s just excuses, excuses, excuses.

When we have a look at what this legislation will deliver, it will make a significant change, it will deliver on the independent Climate Change Commission’s advice to this Parliament about steps that need to be taken. I took a call on the second reading of this legislation, so I won’t go into the specifics of what the select committee delved into, but what I would say is that when we have a look at the their recommendations and the work that they did, they’ve made the proposed legislation much more user-friendly, identified the role that the Minister will play in terms of taking advice—and then I’ll leave it for members themselves to have a look.

But I reflect on the three aspects that remain unchanged for me at second reading. Really, what this legislation does is it provides a focus in terms of supply and the variability and variety that would be delivered in that particular space—that’s the first thing. Secondly is that it does create incentives, and colleagues on this side of the House have already referred to the incentives that would be put in place. The third is around transparency. The bill itself provides transparency, not just for the manufacturers that would be importing these vehicles but also for those members of our community who would purchase the vehicles, ensuring that they knew the information about the vehicles, that they knew, specifically, whether it was electric vehicle (EV) hybrid, and what the particular subsidy would provide as well.

When I reflect back on the independent advice of the Climate Change Commission that is from Ināia tonu nei, it is around providing fiscal incentives, which this bill does; it is around lowering the cost, which will be a flow-on effect; and it will be a matter of urgency, which is why we are committed to seeing this piece of legislation through the Parliament this afternoon.

When I reflect on a couple who actually came to visit me in my electorate office when the Government had announced that this was going to take place and that the subsidy was put in place, they were able to discuss with me their thought process and their thinking around why they decided to purchase an EV, an electric vehicle. For them, the incentive for a subsidy was part of the reason why they decided to make that particular decision. This will continue in place. It will continue to support the focus around supply, the incentivisation, but also the transparency that is obviously needed as well. This has proven that it is a huge success. The Government will continue to support initiatives in partnership with others around infrastructure that’s being rolled out to support EVs, hybrids, and the like. I am delighted to be able to commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Before the introduction of this legislation, we had become the dumping ground for pollutant vehicles.

💬 Barbara Kuriger: Oh, there’s that rhetoric again.

What has happened—it’s not rhetoric; it’s actually absolutely what had happened. We had let those vehicles come in and we had seen it as an advantage for our poorer citizens that they could buy cheaper vehicles. But what we were doing was we were flooding the country with vehicles which were hurting our children because they were allowing them to live in a polluted environment, and they were hurting our climate change needs. So they were not doing us any good in the long term. This is a dramatic turn-around for this country and it has two aspects: (1) it brings us up to the standards that most countries—let’s face it—have already adopted; and the other is it provides a scheme where people will be able to buy an electric vehicle and it will go into the pool of vehicles in this country.

I want to be very clear about this because there’s been a little confusion today about what the scheme is for. It’s not for the person who buys the first electric car; it’s for all the people who buy the cars subsequently, because most of us, let’s face it, do not buy new vehicles. We buy second-hand vehicles, and this is going to flood the market with those vehicles and they’re going to be affordable for the first time for our poorest families. And let’s also face it: being poor is quite an expensive process in this country because if your vehicle is a petrol-guzzling vehicle and an older vehicle, it is actually much higher to maintain, in terms of costs, and you have to pay for petrol, which is going through the roof. So it’s going to be a wonderful thing when our families are released from that, and this particular Act will work to do that—it achieves it—and I am absolutely proud of that.

Now, I just wanted to talk about some of the rhetoric we heard today from the National Party. Yes, it is true that they shared that rhetoric with some of the bigger, older-style car companies who told us things like, “Oh no, we’re part of a small market. We can’t possibly demand these vehicles.” We’ve heard it today with lots and lots of put-downs: “chardonnay socialists”. We’ve heard about how our Minister Wood is full of self-importance. These kinds of put-downs are things I’ve heard all my life as a practising lawyer. When people don’t like change, they put others down, rather than producing any proper ideas. And let’s face it, this idea is a good one. We know that because, from last year, when the scheme started, one in four of those electric vehicles out there came in during the scheme, and one thing that we don’t like is a success if we are in that kind of mind-set, because that’s what we’ve got here.

I am absolutely proud of this scheme. I’m proud of what it’s going to achieve long term. I’m proud of the contribution it will make to the second-hand car market, turning it into one that is healthier and better for the environment. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m wondering, now that we’ve got to this point in the debate, when we are going to get a rural MP with some sense of reality around utes actually standing up and making a speech. I could see the senior whip over there for the Labour Party, who had one such vehicle until recently, until, unfortunately, his Prime Minister put him in a space where it was very difficult to retain his ute for ute purposes after he’d given her a ride in it. It just showed me that, as Greg O’Connor said before, “Farmers adapt.” Well, we’ve actually seen Kieran McAnulty adapt and farmers will adapt. But you can’t adapt to something that doesn’t exist, and that is the message that this side of the House is trying to get through.

The National Party do want the climate change goals to succeed, but to get the right goals to succeed, you have to have the right settings. And right now—I was at Fieldays as well, and I can tell you that I’m not sure if Mr O’Connor over there actually told us all that the farmers said to him, because a lot of farmers were actually telling us a lot of stuff at Fieldays about what a stupid policy this was because you tax something for which you have no replacement for and all you are doing is taking money out of the pockets of the people who actually want to make a difference to climate change. So that doesn’t work. It’s a tax, it’s a wealth transfer, and it’s got nothing to do with climate change.

The Prime Minister said way back at the beginning, a few years ago, that this could be her generation’s nuclear-free moment. Well, unfortunately, we’ve heard too much of that and we’ve heard today that the renewable energy is going backwards in this country. So when you claim that something’s going to be a nuclear-free moment, you might want to be very careful what you wish for, because we all know that our renewable energy is going backwards. So therefore, even if Minister Wood’s grand plan about us all driving around in electric cars actually worked at some level and we could all find a suitable vehicle for our requirements, for which many people can’t right now, i.e., farmers and tradies, then we wouldn’t have enough renewable electricity to run such vehicles. We all know that there’s quite a lot of Indonesian coal going into our renewable energy system and taking it backwards.

Farmers do adapt. I think this Government actually needs to adapt some of their policies to understand how things actually work in the real world. When the technology is available, people will change to it. This is just mucking around with market forces. This is just putting taxes in place that are going to make no difference, and one day, the Minister is going to eat his words and everything he’s said around this piece of legislation.

We did hear today about the excitement about this discount—for our families that can’t afford to buy cars. There’s a lot of families that won’t be able to afford to buy these cars, even with the discount. These cars are expensive. These cars, because we don’t have enough of them yet, haven’t actually come down to an affordable price. And when they do, then we should start thinking about encouraging some of our families to be able to afford these electric cars. The market forces will take care of these things when they’re available.

Angela Roberts is over there and she must understand the dynamics of a rural electorate because she’s actually covering quite a big rural electorate in her role at the moment. But I had quite a level of—well, I don’t know if it was comedy or discomfort or quite what it was the other night when Michael Wood stood up and talked about how he’d had a wonderful holiday in the summer with his family and he actually had driven through my electorate, made a point of saying that he’d been there. He’d been on State Highway 3 in Ōtorohanga and Te Kūiti, and he had his electric car and he’d managed to charge it, and that was all wonderful. So rural was taken care of. We all know that Minister Wood, in his discussion document, actually said he was going to put a lot of cycle ways in rural so that farmers and tourists could go about their business, and I wondered if he’d ever been there until that moment.

So, yes, we do have electric vehicle chargers in Ōtorohanga and Te Kūiti, but that is not rural New Zealand at the most remote points of it. I made a point to Minister Wood the other night that if he had been in Marokopa last weekend, he probably wouldn’t have got to work this week, because he would have been stuck in his electric car. I asked him when he opened the road at Awakino whether he’d actually seen the hills surrounding northern Taranaki and the King Country, because people need utes to be able to run the businesses; the sheep and beef farmers, in particular, that operate on that hill country. Mr McAnulty knows this well, and Angela Roberts must see it as she goes around in her travels as well.

Now, when Canterbury flooded, the Prime Minister was down there. How did she get to go and meet with those Canterbury farmers? In a ute. Nicola Grigg will tell us that. She went in a ute. Greg O’Connor, I remember back when you were a new MP, you telling us stories about how you’d been to the West Coast.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member won’t bring the Speaker into the debate.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I remember Greg O’Connor telling us his memories about working on his uncle’s farm on the West Coast of the South Island—and I know that his cousin’s farm is pretty severely flooded at the moment, and there’s a lot of mud in the West Coast of the South Island. Unfortunately for those people down there, three sessions of weather within about eight months. It’s been very wet, it’s been very muddy, and the only access that some of those people have, to be able to get in and out, are four-wheel-drive ute vehicles. It is a big slap in the face for those people who want to continue to drive those vehicles to have to turn round and pay a tax on top of the cost of a vehicle that they have no replacement for.

So I just want to reiterate to the Government—I mean, we know the voting dynamics in this House. They’re going to change very soon: 2023 is coming up and the game is on. But I just want to give some reality to those people on the other side of the House that actually, if you put a tax on something for which you do not have an alternative, all you are doing is taking money off people. The Government is not going to make any difference to climate change with this policy. It’s just a dynamic that’s working against market forces. It’s a dynamic that’s putting vehicles into the system for which we have no renewable electricity for. I look forward to the day when we can point out to the Government that this policy has not worked and we can get back into Government and we can reverse the ute tax and we can put some sensible climate change policies on the agenda. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a great privilege to take the final call on this very progressive piece of legislation. I stand here and I know that, when I leave the House tonight, I can go and look the young people of this country in the eye and say, “We have done something.” I haven’t heard a single idea from the other side of the House about how we are going to mitigate the costs, mitigate the climate change damage that is happening.

We’ve heard about, you know, being stuck in Marokopa last week. Many of us had experienced the energy that is becoming more common. I want to commend the leadership of our Minister, the previous Minister—about actually taking some action. It’s really ironic hearing people on the other side of the House talk about ideology versus actual evidence. It’s a weird thing to say for me, but these are capitalist concepts. These are capitalist levers. This is about influencing, internalising externalities, incentivising behaviour shifts. This is about influencing the supply—just of supply and demand—for cleaner vehicles.

The improved standards mean that we are open for business. The rest of the world knows that they have to meet those challenges. It gives our importers the confidence to go and compete for cleaner vehicles on the global market. It gives companies like the Lines Company the confidence to invest in our charging infrastructure so you can charge in Mōkau. It also gives the confidence to continue to build a diverse green fleet. It isn’t just about electric vehicles. You do need vehicles with decent torque. Some of us need four-wheel drives—absolutely. It is about making sure that we have really good green hydrogen and hybrids as well. This is bringing vehicles into the fleet that can be sold to ordinary New Zealanders as second-hand vehicles.

💬 Barbara Kuriger: We don’t have green hydrogen.

We are investing in green hydrogen. We are visionary and we are ambitious. The young people of New Zealand deserve this. This is a story of hope and this is a story of a Government of action and I commend this bill to the House.