Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Standard) Amendment Bill (No 2)

Good morning, everyone. When we finished last evening, we were on the second reading of the Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Standard) Amendment Bill (No 2), call No. 9.

I’m not sure if it was too late last night for the members on the other side, but, clearly, they are still living in a dream, or perhaps in their own la-la land. The members on the other side tried to link falling electric vehicle demand to the repeal of the Clean Car Discount, yet almost every submitter confirmed that that’s not what’s driving the market. It is driven by the broader market factors, not the policy change. One thing is certain: the vehicle importers who made submissions all agreed that the previous standards, set by the former Government, were unrealistic and impractical, and this is why we’re here—to clean up their mess. I commend this bill to the House.

Good to see the caffeine levels have hit in this early in the morning. Shanan Halbert—a five-minute call.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look how backwards Mt Roskill has become when it comes to the progress in our transport fleet. Anyone in this discussion will know that 43 percent of our emissions in this country come from our transport fleet across Aotearoa New Zealand. And we are, this morning, debating a bill that certainly takes us backwards on climate and emissions. It takes us backwards on our transport across Auckland and New Zealand. But this is no surprise, and this is exactly the reason why New Zealanders are turning against this National-led Government.

Labour continues to oppose this bill because it takes us backwards and the select committee process confirmed that this bill in fact weakens the clean vehicle standard and undermines New Zealand’s progress in transport emissions. Our dissenting view makes it very clear that the bill does prioritise short-term convenience for importers over meaningful emissions reductions. It extends the carbon credit lifespans from three to four years, undermining annual accountability, and it will slow decarbonisation.

We spent a bit of time at the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. A lot of mahi was done and there was a lot of consultation across the sector, and change is difficult, of course. Change is difficult, but what I know is that New Zealanders don’t want to go backwards. They want to protect our planet. They want to make sure we’re doing the right things now for tomorrow and for generations to come, and this bill simply weakens the standard of what New Zealanders expect.

This Government has been influenced. It’s been influenced by the big players in town, so they’re making decisions to move such legislation despite the fact that the majority view in the report makes no attempt to hide the fact that the bill responds to industry pressure. The bill responds to industry pressure for looser rules, not environmental or economic evidence. Now, that “E” word does go missing quite often under this Government. Evidence isn’t informing the decisions of the leadership of this country at the moment.

We’ve got to come back, move away from our political ideology and what we hear, and try and fight for relevancy in a New Zealand that is turning against the National Party, and start using evidence for the decisions that we expect, whether it be in transport or whether it be in health or whether it be in education. Evidence is incredibly important. But the thing is, we’ve got to listen to our communities. We’ve got to listen to our communities and find the right balance; listen to our communities and hear what they are saying, as well as to industry—I say to the ACT Party over there. Yes, industry is important, but we’ve got to make the right decisions for now and for tomorrow. But the new trading rules risk incentivising higher-emitting used vehicles. The majority’s recommendation enables credit transfers between new and used importers with a two-for-one exchange rate. And, of course, Labour highlighted to the committee that this flexibility risks flooding New Zealand with more used high-emitting vehicles.

Anyone who has sat on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee will know that because we’re at the bottom of the world, we will be recipients of the dirtiest cars in the world, and this was an attempt, of course, to change some of that, to do better, to protect our environment, and to actually demonstrate some evidence-led leadership in this country.

We do not agree with this bill. It takes us backwards. It doesn’t reduce emissions and, of course, this Government is making just another bad decision that New Zealand is turning against them on.

Good morning, Mr Speaker. Well, there’s something that the people on the other side of the House haven’t worked out. It’s that the people of this country love their utes, and we need to be able to have our utes so that we can drive up to Northland—the electorate that’s miles above the rest—over the Brynderwyn Hills and do it in an affordable manner. I commend the bill to the House.

Good morning, everyone, and good morning, Mr Speaker. I was on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee when the legislation came through that both provided a discount, an incentive, for people to buy electric vehicles and brought in standards. One of the things that we heard was we heard an outcry that I was used to hearing in my previous job, where people would go, “This can’t possibly happen. This won’t work. We’re going to have this crisis.”, etc.

None of this actually happened. What we got was we got things like electric vehicles going down—one went down $20,000 because there was a market to meet. That was a van, and it was something that wasn’t on the market, and so, actually, the dealers reduced the prices of those, and we got a whole lot more electric vehicles in the country than we had had before. So there was a lot of choice, and the Hon Julie Anne Genter talked about that. There were things like “build your own” electric vehicles, which just weren’t here, and suddenly they were here.

That’s the value of Government taking leadership: we can create a market. We can create an appetite. I look at the report that was done on this bill. It says, under “Other matters considered”, “We heard from the motor vehicle industry, particularly the new vehicle industry, that settings in the clean vehicle standards regime are fundamentally and structurally misaligned with the vehicle fleet that New Zealanders wish to purchase.” That’s a really interesting comment. It’s from a lobby group and it’s talking about what New Zealanders wish to purchase. Well, we live in a world where we actually can lead that desire.

When I think about my electorate of Mt Albert, which is, actually, very similar to Carlos’—in fact, Carlos Cheung’s electorate and mine will actually lose a bit of ground together in the next boundary change—and I think about those people who are living in somewhere like Wesley, which is an area that we share in that way, I think about the way that the motorway goes right next to the people in that area, and it dips. They’re being impacted by the emissions from those very vehicles. Their kids will die as a result—[Interruption] I’m not overstating it, and I need to be able to make this point. The children in that area will die at a greater rate because of the emissions from those utes that Grant McCallum just talked about.

Before you cry across the House, there’s actually good research on that: people die because of pollution in cities from cars, and, actually, when you remove a whole lot of petrol vehicles and diesel vehicles from the fleet, you actually impact on the wellbeing and the health of the children in the very electorates that you come from. It might not be such a problem for Grant McCallum, who comes from an area where there aren’t a lot of people, and so those emissions aren’t such a problem, because there’s a spread of people. But in intensified cities—and remember that Carlos Cheung’s and my area will take the majority of new people coming into Auckland because we’re building in a different way and we’re building more intensely. As we do that, it’s incredibly important that for the sake of Carlos Cheung’s children, for the sake of, hopefully, my grandchildren, we clean up the air.

Dr Carlos Cheung: Point of order. Mr Speaker, I accept that the other member can attack me, but I don’t think she should be using my children as an example in the speech.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Sit down, Mr Cheung. Mr Cheung, this is a robust discussion, and I’ve heard you, actually, being quite vocal in it. Give and take—just a little bit less sensitivity. Carry on, Ms White.

Dr Carlos Cheung: Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Sorry, Mr Cheung, this is a frivolous interjection, and I’m treating it as such, particularly for someone who has been actually making some considerable noise across the House.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Point of order. I do take your point, Mr Speaker, but there is a long-held convention in the House that we do not introduce our families and family members into the debate.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Yes, well, I took it as a broad enough mention. But there’s obviously been some—just carry on with your speech and be aware of the sensitivities of the House.

HELEN WHITE: Absolutely, I will. My point was about the broader situation in both our electorates. We have children growing up in an environment where we know that children in this country in particular get asthma. We know we have higher rates than most places in the world. It’s incredibly important that we work on air quality.

I take the point that was made by Simon Court that cars have got better. They are better than they were; we’ve taken out the lead. But our job as a legislature is to actually lead changes that are important to the wellbeing of our people. We can drive an economy one way or the other, and this is very, very important to the people in our electorate, because it is a life and death situation. We know from the science that we have done; we know that those are real, real prices that people pay for the pollution in our cities. I remember waking up in the COVID era when we were in our lockdowns, and lots of people will remember this: we had a city where there were fewer cars and we actually had a cleaner environment than we’ve ever had, and it was a little glimpse of what we could build into our cities.

So while I am in favour of building more intensely in the inner city, I do see the value in doing that alongside initiatives like the Clean Car Standard. When we do that, we drive change that’s consistent with the communities growing in a different way, and that’s our job: our job is to lead that change. Our job is not to listen to a lobby group that says, “People don’t like all these vehicles; we have to sell them cheaper.” Actually, that’s a good thing. If there’s a glut of electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles on the lots of the car dealers, if there’s a glut of those and they have to cut their profits to get those cars out—if they have to do that, and there are not a lot of car dealers going bust at the moment, they’re doing OK. If they have to move into the electric vehicle fleet, then, actually, that’s a really good thing. It’s a really good thing. That’s our job.

It’s so interesting that we’re so tough on people out there who lose their jobs at the moment that we tell them they have to move regions. We tell them they have to be flexible, that they should go to Australia for that. We’re so tough on them, but we’re not tough on the people who are running these kinds of operations where they have to be mindful.

We had a person on the radio today talking about this law. He runs an electric motor vehicle company. He is bringing in electric motor vehicles. He was talking about the damage that this is going to do. That person is actually working to a value system. It’s not all about profit for him; it’s a balance. He’s making money out of those vehicles and he’s doing a good thing at the same time. Those are not things that we should see as some sort of dichotomy. We can drive this industry the right way, and we can actually save some lives by doing so. We can clean up our environment, and we can meet our emissions targets, which is going to be really, really important.

Instead, what I’ve heard from this House is—I’ve heard Grant McCallum, who’s a really lovely guy, get up and say he wants to drive—

Hon Members: Oh!

HELEN WHITE: He is; he’s a lovely guy. But he’s in the Dark Ages. He’s saying he’s got the right to go across the Brynderwnys in his ute. Well, that is an important right for Grant McCallum, but it is not as important as the right of the children in my area to have a clean environment. That’s a more important right. And we actually have to choose sometimes. It’s our job to choose, to be brave.

It’s really interesting that the National Party came into Government talking about bringing people forward, and it’s doing the opposite. It’s burying its head in the sand in pieces of legislation like this. If there’s any issue in this area, well, it needs a solution that’s creative, it needs a solution that’s principled; it does not need this movement backwards, this visionless move. Find some decent solutions, do some work. If you’ve got a problem, fix it well, not like this.

Just before I call the next speaker, I just reflect on the interaction that took place, Mr Cheung. I accept, Mr Cheung, that, clearly, you felt that you had been impugned or your family had been impugned—you mentioned this. So I accept that, and this is to just reinforce that we do keep families out of this. Some of this is in the eye of the beholder, I realise that, so just a general warning that we do keep families out of our debate here. So I’ll accept that you were genuinely distressed at that comment.

Look, I’d just like to acknowledge some of the comments that the member on the opposite side of the House made around providing practical solutions and choice. That is what this bill is all about, because, like she has said, people want choice. If they want to drive their ute across the Brynderwyns, they should be able to have that choice. If a consumer wants to buy an electric vehicle and drive around the streets of Auckland, that is their choice. This is about bringing down the cost of vehicles for consumers in a very tough time at the moment and providing choice. It’s a practical solution. I commend this bill to the House.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi—the Te Pāti Māori call.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou. Choice is often the realm of the privileged. It is not something that is extended to all, generally, particularly where I come from, in Te Tai Tokerau, and that’s not because we don’t want it. It is because, often, we are locked out of it, and this bill, with all it’s good intentions, I guess—this is how I’d like to speak to it.

When this bill was first introduced, we were told that it was about flexibility and balance. I haven’t found that in any way, regardless of the work that’s been put into it. The weakening of the clean vehicle standard, a policy designed to reduce emissions and prevent Aotearoa from becoming a dumping ground for inefficient vehicles rejected in countries with stricter environmental rules—that purpose is worth remembering, even if you do own a ute and drive up the Brynderwyns.

The Government claims that these changes will make compliance easier. In reality, they create loopholes, extending the lifespans of carbon credits from three years to four years, removing restrictions on transferring credits between the new and used imports sectors, and allowing the borrowing for future overachievement beyond 2025. These measures delay real progress and undermine the integrity of the standard.

We’ve heard rhetoric about affordability and choice, but the facts tell a different story. Modelling shows that by 2035, these changes could result in 39,000 fewer fully electric vehicles and 19,000 fewer plug-in hybrids on our roads. That’s not affordability; that’s locking families into higher fuel costs and higher emissions for decades.

Climate change is not a distant threat; it is here, now, and it is hitting hardest. Why do Grant McCallum and I know that? Because we come from the North, and particularly if you’re in Whangaroa, Whangārei, or Te Kaipara, you’ll know about the flooding and all of the things that are meant to come every hundred years, but it feels like it’s every five years. They’re not just once-in-a-lifetime floods; they seem to be too many, too often. If you drive through Kāeo or Whangaroa today, you’ll see the decimation of homes, farms, roads, and infrastructure. These are not isolated events; they are a reality of a warming world.

Any legislation that prioritises short-term profits over the long-term health of our environment harms our children—especially mine and Helen White’s—and I say that because it must be said and stated like that in this space, where we make law and then we decide on resource for our future mokopuna rising. Hence my statement.

I think ka nui tēnā, Mr Speaker. I did want to make sure to stand and say that from a Te Tai Tokerau perspective, as the MP, the balance and the flexibility that was once offered is not a real thing, though I wish that it was, and I think that the Government should do better. Tēnā tātou.

The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee by majority be agreed to.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Standard) Amendment Bill (No 2).

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to principal Act