Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Discount Scheme Repeal) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Discount Scheme Repeal) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Land Vehicle (Clean Vehicle Discount Scheme Repeal) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Today, I’m introducing the Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Discount Repeal) Amendment Bill into the House, which gives effect to the National Party’s commitment to ending the ute tax within our first 100 days. This piece of legislation is also part of our coalition agreement with the ACT Party, who made the same commitment: ending the scheme—which is reflected in our coalition agreement between our two parties.

This is good news for our farmers and tradies who have been hammered by the last Government and who were forced to pay exorbitant fees buying the vehicles they needed to be able to do their jobs. This bill ends the unnecessary, regressive, and fiscally irresponsible ute tax and Clean Car Discount Scheme. It is an important priority for the Government and it is one of our actions in our first 100 days. Axing the ute tax is one of the policies New Zealanders voted for and which they expect us to deliver, and which we are delivering on.

This bill does a number of things. Firstly, what it does is it repeals the legislation to ensure that the scheme ends on 31 December 2023, both for the discounts and also for the tax. It repeals the legislation which the last Government put in place, and requires that scheme to come to an end. This scheme needs to come to an end for three very important reasons: firstly, it is fiscally irresponsible. The scheme has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, and it will only continue to cost taxpayers more and more money the longer it stays in place. Through to 30 November 2023, $579 million was paid out in rebates, $13.5 million was spent in cost to establish and operate the scheme, while $290 million has been received from charges. This has meant that taxpayers had to foot the bill by an eye-watering $302.5 million deficit paid to New Zealand Transport Agency via grants from the Crown—that is taxpayers’ money. Now, on this side of the House, we respect taxpayers’ money, and we know that money doesn’t just grow on trees. I think that’s the philosophy of the former Government—and that is one of the reasons why they are now in Opposition, because they had a view that money simply grew on trees.

So this scheme was fiscally irresponsible, and to address that, what the Crown would have to have done to continue with this scheme was do a number of potential changes: firstly, possibly lowering or restricting rebates to electric vehicles—effectively, not continuing with the high subsidies that were put in place by the former Government; secondly, increasing charges even more for ute buyers, making it even harder for our farmers and tradies who needed to purchase the vehicles they need to be able to do their job; or providing even more Crown funding. The former Government thought money grew on trees—that probably is exactly what they would have done, and thrown more taxpayers’ money into a scheme which is fiscally irresponsible. So by ending this scheme by 31 December, we don’t need to do any of those actions. Instead, we can ensure that this fiscally irresponsible scheme comes to an end.

But we also need to look at the inequities that this scheme was providing, and one of the key facts which I highlighted yesterday in question time was around how this scheme was taking money from people who had very little choice around the types of vehicles that they could use. [Interruption] I hear Grant McCallum, the excellent member for Northland, who is doing a great job in that electorate and who needs his ute to get around his electorate and his farm. The reality is it was taking money from people like him—people who don’t have the choice around purchasing an electric vehicle for their type of work and then subsidising people who do have the choice. In fact, over $122 million was provided as subsidies to people purchasing electric vehicles worth over $70,000 in the last 18 months. Taking money from people who have little choice—

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Oh, well, anyone who didn’t like it can pay it back.

Well, I hear the former Minister for a lot of things—emphasis on “former”—complaining about this bill. I look forward to her speech a little bit later. But the point is, this policy was taking from those who didn’t have a choice and giving it to people who could afford to pay for those vehicles, and so by ending this scheme we are ending the reverse Robin Hood scheme. I thought the party opposite were the party for workers—I thought they were the party for workers. They’ve tried to spend the last two days trying to tell everybody in this House how much they care about the workers. But actually, what they are the party of is—they want to subsidise people who can already afford to buy a very high-end electric vehicle and provide them more subsidies; that is actually who the party is, over on the other side. And so by removing this scheme, we remove the inequities that it was providing.

Finally, by removing this scheme, we’re able to actually focus on what is required to actually improve the uptake of electric vehicles in New Zealand, which is what will make a real difference, and that is investing in the electric vehicle charging infrastructure that we need across New Zealand. On this side of the House, we are the party of infrastructure, we are the party which gets things done, and we will be rolling out policies to implement 10,000 electric vehicle chargers by 2030 to actually ensure that people purchasing electric vehicles have the confidence to be able to charge their vehicles and travel around New Zealand. Because what we know is that car manufacturers around the world are switching to electric in all of their production chains; we don’t need to be providing very expensive subsidies to make them do that. In fact, we are such a small part of the car market in New Zealand—what we do makes a very little difference.

In fact, those cars will be coming here—and I note even Ford announced yesterday that on 1 January, the day after this scheme ends, they are reducing the price of their vehicles by $5,000. And so the car industry will be keen to make sure the vehicles they are manufacturing around the world will be coming to New Zealand; that New Zealanders will continue to have the choice and the range of electric vehicles, and we’ll provide the electric vehicle charging infrastructure so that they can have that uptake so we can electrify our fleet here in New Zealand—we have a positive plan to do that. We don’t need an inequitable scheme which is fiscally irresponsible, which is what the past Government did. I commend the bill to the House.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Can I firstly congratulate you on your ascension to the high office that you now hold. I heard the Hon Marama Davidson say that you look good in that seat. I agree with that sentiment. It’s good to see that half of the New Zealand Parliament’s Cook Island caucus is represented in the presiding officer’s seat.

It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on the Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Discount Scheme Repeal) Amendment Bill. As we progress through the many hours ahead today—in terms of progressing this bill at various stages—we’ll be having some conversations about the appropriateness of what this bill is called, amongst other things. But this is very clearly a step back into the future—a step back into the past. That is not the direction that any country in this world needs to be heading when it comes to meeting the needs of tackling climate change.

Now, members opposite might be quite comfortable with that, but let’s not have any confusion around this: for members on this side of the House, that is not the case. We have already dealt with the Reserve Bank. We have disgracefully passed the piece of legislation that, effectively, removes the rights of hard-working Kiwis here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Now, we are considering a bill that will, effectively, roll back steps towards meeting our obligations when it comes to addressing the immediate and near need around climate change.

We heard from the Minister of Transport—my breakfast TV buddy—who I have said previously is leadership material. I thought he was going to be the Deputy Prime Minister, and I stated that on television. I have to say that his pathetic attempt at addressing the House with this piece of legislation has meant that all of those aspirations, that he might still hold, no longer exist.

We heard from the Minister that he’s had an opportunity to focus on this regressive and fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation, as it currently stands. He’s talked about fiscal irresponsibility. He has talked about how we would be taking the money from hard workers and, effectively, giving it to the rich. How fiscally responsible is it, then, for the Tesla-loving Prime Minister’s household to be able to access the very rebate that his Government seeks to remove? The question that many of us will be asking: is he going to pay it back? Are other members opposite, who may have benefited from this—given they are the very ones who want to remove this piece of opportunity—are they going to be paying it back? I bet you they won’t. I bet you, Mr Speaker, that they won’t. Because it’s all about, actually, taking from others, but when it concerns themselves, it’s a different consideration, as far as they see that.

I don’t think taxpayers think it’s right for a Government to want to focus on removing a rebate—the very rebate that the Prime Minister has benefited from. I think that, as we progress through this piece of legislation over the coming hours—and perhaps coming days; who knows?—there will be some contributions about the relevancy of this piece of legislation, particularly where leaders in the current Government have, effectively, benefited from this particular rebate.

Now, there’ll be plenty of opportunity to talk about this rushed process. Those who may have switched on their telly on a Thursday morning, or listen to the radio, might be thinking, “Why is the House sitting at this particular point in time?” Well, we can share with them that it’s because the House is, unfortunately, in urgency. Urgency is utilised for what the House considers to be the most pressing issues, for the most pressing needs. What we’ve heard from the Government is that the rationale for progressing this piece of legislation is that it is to give effect to key elements of the so-called 100-day plan that they have. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Because I think members in the House—and, certainly, I think, lots of people all around the country—will be thinking, “My, my, how has the Government prioritised this over some of the many other things that they went into the election indicating that they wanted to roll back or do?” What is it that they are purely focused on when they identify this piece of legislation which is focusing on actually removing something that is going to make a huge difference, and it has proven so? So on this side of the House, we will vehemently oppose all stages of progress for this particular bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I have to say that I am so proud of what we achieved with the Clean Car Discount over the last 18 months. This was a policy that I worked on as Associate Minister of Transport in the first coalition Government from 2017 to 2020. What we can say is that it is now the single most effective climate policy implemented by any Government in New Zealand so far. It has made a concrete difference to the amount of carbon emissions, but not just that: the amount of money that New Zealanders are spending on fuel to get around the country.

We have saved two megatons of carbon already. This is a very technical point, but I think I need to—yeah, this is a technical point. I’m going to go on with it. I think members opposite are confused about a letter which is absolutely public, and you can see it any time, and I’d love to talk you through it, because the National Party is missing out on the opportunity to get a more productive transport system while reducing emissions and pollution. It is possible to do both. This was a genuine solution that did both.

I have to address the misinformation in the Minister’s—basically, the Minister has a bunch of culture war talking points that have no evidence or basis in reality. The reality is that the Clean Car Discount programme is fair and Kiwis support it. The polling shows only 20 percent of New Zealanders oppose it. A majority of New Zealanders support it—52 percent. A majority of National Party voters support the Clean Car Discount. Why? Because it’s fair and we’re all in this together. This is a practical solution.

Now, if the members opposite want a genuine solution to climate change, they need to realise that sitting back and doing nothing will not work. We have to work together to make the change, and every New Zealander can be part of this solution. The beauty of the Clean Car Discount was that even the people who need to buy the highly polluting vehicles for whatever reason: they’re choosing do that, they have to do that—they also contribute to getting more zero-emissions and low-emissions vehicles on the road. So while they’re driving their big ute, they are also helping to ensure that somebody else is able to get into an electric vehicle, and overall that reduces our emissions together.

The National Party does not care about equity. Do not believe what they say when they say that they care about equity, because they are giving tonnes of money to the wealthiest people through tax cuts back to landlords. So they’re giving money back to the richest New Zealanders in a way that does nothing to reduce emissions. The point of this policy is reducing emissions, and it has. If you care about equity, let’s see it in your tax proposals. Let’s see it in your benefit proposals. If you cared about equity, then the National Government would not be proposing tax cuts for landlords and the super-rich.

Finally, this Government has suppressed the climate analysis. There was a regulatory impact statement prepared on the repeal of this Act that says exactly what the estimated impact will be on our carbon budget, and the Government is refusing to release that as we repeal the bill. So the public and those of us in the House have not got the official information that should have been released to us that tells us what the climate impact of repealing this bill will be.

The members in the Government are going to have to confront reality at some point. The Prime Minister has said that he’s committed to meeting the carbon budget, and yet they have zero plan to actually achieve that. We know that relying on the emissions trading scheme (ETS), fuel being in the ETS, does nothing to help New Zealanders get into lower-emissions vehicles. What it does do is it means once people are already in high-emitting vehicles, they have to pay more to drive around. So that is what the National Government is going to have to be relying on.

The beauty of the “feebate”—which, by the way, has been extremely successful in many other countries. France has had one since 2008, and the highest fee now has gone from—it started at €2,000, then it was €30,000, now it’s up to €50,000 on the highest-emitting vehicle. The price incentive at the point of purchase of the vehicle is what influences the vehicle importers to offer those low-emission vehicles to the market. It’s what saves New Zealanders’ businesses and households money when they need to drive around.

We will go through this in more detail during this debate, and I look forward to the members opposite engaging in evidence.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The ACT Party is proud to support the repeal of the clean vehicle discount scheme, a scheme which submitters to the 53rd Parliament’s Transport and Infrastructure Committee said was completely unnecessary. Vehicle manufacturers said, quite clearly, between 2025 and 2028 they’re going to completely retool manufacturing in Asia, South-east Asia, and Europe to produce almost nothing but EVs and hybrids. So if you currently drive a Ford Ranger turbo-diesel, you’ll be able to get one—according to the manufacturers—in a hybrid in the next couple of years that will be very, very low with any emissions.

Now, the previous Government, having heard that, proceeded to introduce a scheme which applied a whole lot of costs to tradies and farmers and large families who wanted to replace an older vehicle with a big van. They applied all of these costs and absolutely ignored the impacts on families and the productive sector. They were told this scheme was unnecessary and that all of the emissions reductions would be delivered between now and 2030 by a complete retooling of manufacturing and supply of light vehicles into the market.

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: Then why did the vehicle industry want the policy? The vehicle industry supported the rebate.

There was a market-based solution available. Now, to that member, Julie Anne Genter, heckling irrationally from the sidelines, the member said it’s time to confront reality. Well, it is. This wild scheme has led to a $300 million deficit, Julie Anne Genter—a $300 million deficit—between the amount of money recovered from long-suffering tradies, farmers, and big families who needed to replace a vehicle with a petrol diesel vehicle, and the amount of money paid out to people who receive subsidies for Teslas and other very expensive EVs.

Over $120 million was paid out to people to buy vehicles worth more than $70,000. That statistic alone confirms what ACT, what National, and what submitters to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee told that committee. The scheme was unnecessary. It was fiscally irresponsible. It would lead to a massive transfer of wealth from some taxpayers and consumers to a very few who could already afford to spend $70,000 on a new car and would receive a subsidy of up to $8,000 from other taxpayers and consumers.

It was bad policy, it was bad law, and the ACT Party is proud—proud—to see the end of the Clean Car Discount, the ute tax, and restore some sanity into climate policy and transport policy after the last three years of frothing and boiling nonsense from the Green Party and their woke mates in the Labour Party. It ends today. Goodbye, Clean Car Discount. Goodbye, ute tax. Goodbye, Labour and Greens.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to also support the Land Transport (Repeal of Clean Car Discounts) Amendment Bill.

Nothing—nothing—signals how out of touch the modern Labour Party is with its working-class heritage in this deeply regressive tax on working-class New Zealanders that sees them subsidising those in the leafy suburbs to buy their Teslas. It shows a lack of understanding for the necessity of utes in particular, and the importance for our farmers and our tradies, and the critical roles that they play in our economy. They simply do not have the alternatives at the moment, as Simon Court has just outlined. Those alternatives are coming. The manufacturers are scaling up; they will become the tool of choice when they are available, but they simply are not at this moment. Of course, those big families that may have to get a van or whatever to get about, they’ve also been heavily, heavily punished by this. The answers are actually, Mr Scott Willis, in the macro, and getting the amount of renewable energy coming through that actually drives the innovation, it drives the uptake of the technology that is coming through in terms of electric vehicles and the like. That is the role of the Government, not micromanaging and nanny-Stating this. It hugely disadvantages rural New Zealanders who simply don’t have the option due to range to take up an electric vehicle.

These reasons are why New Zealand First, in our last term at Parliament, pulled the handbrake on this. We didn’t support it then, we don’t support it now. We support repealing this scheme. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Mōrena e te Speaker, tēnā koe. Tēnā tātou katoa e te Whare. I rise on behalf of Te Pāti Māori to speak to this first reading of the Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Discount Scheme Repeal) Amendment Bill.

As kaitiaki of this whenua it is our responsibility to ensure that the health of our taiao is maintained for our mokopuna, and it is for our mokopuna that Te Pāti Māori oppose the bill. The climate crisis threatens our culture, our identity, our marae, our whānau, our hapū—tangata whenua katoa. It has been a slow-moving crisis, and depictions of rising temperatures and melting glaciers means that it often feels distant and abstract and therefore misunderstood and unrealised by many in this House. However, the storms that ravaged my rohe of Te Tai Tokerau and other rohe across the motu this year tells us that this distance has now closed and the taiao now, more than ever, is loud and clear in alerting us of their pain and mamae.

The reality is Aotearoa is currently not on track to meet its climate targets. Repealing this policy will increase carbon emissions and it will represent a backward step in terms of acting on climate change. Mokopuna will suffer due to backwards thinking of those in power who are focused on capitalist profit over healthy, functioning, green, wonderful, blue taiao, particularly in Te Tai Tokerau.

The protection of Papatūānuku and a stable global climate cannot be achieved without indigenous leadership and knowledge—tā te Māori tēnā [that is the purview of Māori], in case you needed clarification—or the recognition of indigenous rights. Tā te Māori tēnā. [That is the purview of Māori.]

There are always reasonings behind the tracking of environmental indicators to ensure our taiao remains healthy and in balance. In Aotearoa, that means whānau, that means hapū, that means iwi must remain at the forefront of climate action, and the solutions must be our own. We are the first conservationists; I made that point yesterday and I repeat it this morning.

The Climate Change Commission advised that the domestic transport emissions must be halved by 2035, for, as it stands, our transport emissions are one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Aotearoa katoa. This bill repeals the clean vehicle standard, which already saw a large increase in the purchase of electric cars since the policy was first announced. This has begun to slowly bring down the cost of clean vehicles as it increases numbers in the market, including for second-hand sale. While incentivising clean car purchases, it is not the complete solution to the climate crisis. It is 1c of the dollar that is our country’s carbon-neutral target by 2050.

For a moment of candour, this policy does not have much of an immediate impact on whānau Māori. Affordability and accessibility remain as barriers to purchasing any car, let alone clean car vehicles. As an MP from a largely rural electorate, we know that for electric vehicles to be a lasting solution, we need to invest massively in infrastructure. As technology advances, it will become more and more a viable option for our whānau and our hapū and our iwi. However, our mokopuna will be the ones to reap the benefits of the seeds we plant today. Therefore, the repealing of this policy is a matter of principle, not precedent, and we are sitting by, retracting any form of climate action. Te Pāti Māori are deeply concerned with this Government’s ram-raid speed at which they are reversing policies that will reduce emissions and protect our taiao—just want to let the words “ram raid” sink in.

We owe it to our mokopuna to challenge this short-sighted mentality and fight for their future. As tangata whenua, we don’t think a year ahead, or even seven years ahead; we think seven generations ahead, and that is why we expressly reject this ideology and we cannot support this legislation today. Tēnā tātou.

I rise in support of the repeal of this ute tax. As a farmer, we have been punished by this ute tax, because we had no choice. We had no choice. What did the Government of the day think—that we were going to put the dogs on the back of a pushbike; we were going to cart the fence posts around the back of the Prius while we actually did our work and actually earned this country an income? We were punished for actually trying to do our job, and we didn’t have any choice at all. But, of course, because they don’t own businesses and have to work on farms, they don’t understand that, do they?

I also compliment the tradies of this country. They were the ones also with little choice. They need their utes for their job. And the other thing: I come from an electorate called Northland. Believe it or not, in Northland our roads are rubbish, and in Northland you need a ute to get around. So many people in Northland have had to park up their cars and drive utes so they can get around without blowing out tyres. Please go and check all the newsfeeds you like—you’ll see that.

So I would say to you here now: farmers want to do their part to help with climate change. This is not one of them. This was unfair. I rise now and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Overnight, world leaders, including a representative of New Zealand in the form of our climate change Minister, Simon Watts, agreed that the world and the globe needs to have stronger carbon-cutting plans in place by 2025. That agreement—that global agreement came in the same week that our Climate Change Commission released its 2023 advice on the direction of policy for the Government’s second emissions reduction plan.

What that report says in a nutshell is that New Zealand will meet emissions budget 1 because there have been a series of policies put in place by a Government over the last six years which will mean we meet emissions budget 1, but emissions budgets 2 and 3 are going to require acceleration of some policies. And what is the response of our newly elected Government? It’s to repeal measures that are doing the heavy lifting on removing emissions from our economy. What the risk report says is we have to do all those things that were planned and more, but here’s the rub for the Government, because they signed up to legislation that says that you must produce emissions reduction plans, and if you’re going to take out measures that decrease emissions, you have to replace it with measures that will make that up.

So I am calling on those members that are barracking with their best climate denial sledges that we’re hearing across this side of the House to actually front up and tell us what they are going to do to reduce emissions. Because what members opposite cannot avoid is that this was an incredibly successful scheme. We’ve heard it being described as a scheme in deficit. This is a scheme that was set to be self-funding in 10 years. It needed a $300 million upfront cost, but its success is that it has overshot expectations, and for all New Zealanders that is a win. Something I think those members and the seats opposite need to start realising is that unless New Zealand cuts its emissions, we will have to go out and buy international credits of other nations and pay for their decarbonisation.

Now, on this side of the House, we will back New Zealanders every day of the week, and we will rather do that than pay other countries in their efforts to decarbonise. Drive Electric has put out, in response to this measure, some pretty good data around this measure that the Government is legislating today. It will result in between 100,000 and 350,000 fewer electric cars on New Zealand roads by 2030. And that is a significant problem in terms of the emissions reduction plan, which the Government is now going to have to tell us in detail—down to megatons—what its substitutions are.

Throughout the course of this debate, we will be asking those questions. What are those substitutions going to be? If not this, then what? And that is what the Government has to tell us, because transport has some heavy lifting to do in emissions budget 2. Transport makes up half of our energy emissions, and in order for us to meet the carbon reduction budgets that are in place, our light vehicle fleet is absolutely critical to that.

So I am going to look forward to, over the course of this debate, knowing what measures are being put in place to make up for the 900 to 3,000 kilotonnes of carbon that is going to increase in our economy as a result of this measure. I note that the Minister won’t release the regulatory impact statement and there’s a reason, and we will be asking questions about that during the course of this debate. It is being rushed through under urgency—no select committee process—and to make it even worse, a Minister that is sitting on a regulatory impact statement. This will be an interesting debate.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m proud to rise in support of the Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Discount Scheme Repeal) Amendment Bill. Firstly, I’d like to commend the leadership of the Minister of Transport, the Hon Simeon Brown, for bringing this bill so quickly to the House to back the rural sector here in New Zealand, our hard-working farmers who that last member, Megan Woods, is out of touch with. She’s spending too much time here in Wellington and needs to get out into our communities and understand what it is like for our rural communities and how they are experiencing it under this ute tax. I’m proud to be part of a party that is going to back our farmers and back our rural sector and ensure that we get back to what we need to.

This scheme is financially unsustainable and fiscally irresponsible, and taxpayers are currently footing the $302 million deficit. Shame! We have plenty more to say but I’d like to commend this bill to the House.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I’m very pleased to take a call on this piece of legislation. It is another classic backtrack—not back-on-track; backtrack—legislation. [Interruption] Yeah, backtrack—that’s it exactly. At a time when—as my colleague has just said—we’ve just concluded internationally at COP a commitment to move forward on lower-emitting technologies and efforts across the globe to try and reduce the effects of climate change. It is a little ironic that we pass a piece of legislation that’s going to reverse the direction of travel—pardon the pun.

I was certainly in the firing line when this was introduced, and I’m very aware of the limited number of options around commercial vehicles across the country. Although, in a discussion and further investigation, at the time it was introduced, one little story the member might be interested in: the Ford Ranger, which was a very popular selling—still is popular selling—vehicle, basically runs a Euro5 motor. If Ford had chosen to be selling the Euro6 motor in New Zealand, the $8,000 or thereabouts tax that was being charged and had been charged would have been significantly lower because of the emissions profile of that vehicle. The point being that there is technology around the world to reduce the emissions and reduce the impulse that the previous legislation brought upon many people who were purchasing or needed to purchase utes and commercial vehicles like that. This was an incentive to move us in the right direction, and, indeed, the uptake of electric vehicles and hybrids in this country is a measure of the success of this piece of legislation—that’s now been backtracked.

Can I ask one question? If it was that bad, I ask every single National Party and ACT member of Parliament that took up the subsidy, as they call it, and claimed it for the electric vehicles they purchased to pay it back. Pay the money back. Pay the money back—

💬 Tom Rutherford: Pay the taxpayer back for all the money you wasted over the last six years.

💬 Grant McCallum: Pay the money back to the farmers.

Pay the money back if you think that it was a bad scheme. Mr Speaker, there are a few calls over there—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Look, interjections: short, sharp, and preferably witty. You’re failing on all counts.

I’ll just talk about agriculture, for example, and farmers. Yes, it was an impost on those who had to buy.

💬 Grant McCallum: Yes, here we go!

I’m acknowledging that. But there’s a lot of them also. In fact, we help a farmer buy an electric vehicle as well, a car. So they paid somewhere; they picked it up somewhere else.

Can I just say the hundreds of millions of dollars that the taxpayers have paid across to the agricultural sector—a good investment, but it is a subsidy by some people’s measure. We call it good investment—we did when we were in Government. Good investment. A billion dollars in one Budget alone for the rural sectors. Eight hundred million dollars from taxpayers to help eliminate Mycoplasma bovis, which, if it had been let run, would have imposed huge additional costs on farmers. We saw the value in that investment, just as the legislation for the Clean Car Discount we saw as a good investment in the future decarbonisation of our economy.

My colleague Megan Woods pointed out that if we don’t move to reduce our carbon emissions, we do have a legal obligation in 2030 that will require the writing out of cheques. We thought that early investment in this area, encouraging more electric vehicles into the market, is a smart way forward. Indeed, people like myself who were somewhat cynical about the effectiveness of an electric vehicle but was forced to have one by the Prime Minister—can I say that they are really, really smart vehicles. If you live in a city, everyone should have an electric vehicle. Everyone.

💬 Tom Rutherford: What about the rural areas?

Yeah, of course there’s a difference in rural areas. We are now starting to see—be it Rivian, be it Ford—a Ranger that is a hybrid vehicle coming on to the market next year. We’re starting to see movement in that direction. We had the vision. This Government is a backtrack Government with a backtrack piece of legislation.

Mike Butterick.

💬 Cameron Brewer: No. Cameron Brewer.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Cameron Brewer.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Sorry, Mr Brewer.

I rise in support of this bill and perhaps the biggest revelation this morning that we’ve heard has come from one of the most seasoned operators in the Labour Party, Megan Woods. She said in her call that this scheme was supposed to be self-funding in 10 years. Well, yesterday, the Minister of Transport revealed that the Clean Car Discount has become fiscally irresponsible, with taxpayers now footing a $302.5 million deficit.

The Ministry of Transport has also admitted that the ute tax in the electric vehicle subsidy scheme is fiscally unsustainable. And even in our explanatory note here, it notes: “The scheme has challenges that are likely to intensify the longer the scheme is in place. … it is difficult to make financially sustainable and self-financing; it possesses ongoing equity and fairness concerns; it will become less effective over time as electric vehicle prices fall … it requires constant changes to its rebates and charges”. Subsequently, I rise in support of this on behalf of hard-working Upper Harbour taxpayers that the Government has decided to discontinue this mad scheme. Thank you.

This bill is set down for second reading immediately.

Second Reading