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

on behalf of the Minister of Transport: I move, That the Land Transport (Clean Vehicle Standard) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

Today, we are taking a very big step towards making sure the clean vehicle standard actually works to the benefit of New Zealanders, particularly those hard-working New Zealanders that get out of bed every day, get in their car, and go to work to make sure that we have a great little country. The changes in this bill are about bringing the standard back to what it was meant to be: a practical, affordable way for New Zealanders to spend less on fuel and to reduce their emissions. The standard was supposed to give New Zealanders better access to more efficient vehicles by causing manufacturers to prioritise our market for the supply of their best vehicles with the latest technology. But right now, under current conditions, the key thing the standard is doing is driving up costs for importers and therefore costs for New Zealanders. Almost 86 percent of importers are in a net charge position, and the average net charge per vehicle for those importers is $1,226. These charges risk being passed on to consumers—ultimately, those who are consuming vehicles most likely in the lower end of the market.

This is happening because under market conditions, importers simply aren’t earning enough credits to offset charges. The system isn’t working as intended, and we risk consumers paying the price. This bill is the first step in fixing that problem. The legislative process we’ve just been through today, and throughout the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and since early August, has improved the steps we are taking in this area. When introduced back in August, the bill made four practical changes to the standard to improve flexibility and reduce compliance costs, and those changes still stand. They are, first, to allow the Minister to recommend uniform carbon dioxide targets—and this came up in the committee debate stage. It allows the Minister to recommend uniform carbon dioxide targets but it also continues to allow them to do variable weight targets. Second, it extends the life of emissions credits from three years to four. Third, it retains the option for importers to borrow credits from future years. Four, it enables credit trading between new- and used-vehicle importers.

Now, during the select committee stage, industry submissions made it very clear to both the select committee and to Government that these changes alone are not enough. With the current market conditions in place, the standard is too tough, and where those charges cannot be fully offset by credits, we risk them being passed on to consumers, making things more expensive. In response, the Government has, by Amendment Paper, added two further changes during the committee of the whole House stage, which I’m very happy to say the House has accepted. First, to make temporary charge reductions for 2026 and 2027. With the reduced rates, we can expect that most importers will now no longer have to pass charges on to consumers. The second change made in committee was for an extended expiry date for credits earned in 2023. This, on the other side of the balance, protects credit-holders from financial loss due to those temporary charge-rate changes. Both of these changes provide immediate relief while we work towards a more durable solution in the long term.

Ultimately, with this system, any system we have in place needs to support New Zealanders to upgrade to newer, cleaner vehicles that cost less to run and support our environmental goals, but they cannot add unnecessary cost to working New Zealanders. I want to take this final opportunity, before we move on to the next speakers, to acknowledge the very many people that have progressed this bill to this stage: to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and members, to those who submitted on the bill and took the time to make their voices and contributions heard, to the representatives of the vehicle industry for their willingness to continue to work alongside Government and officials for the best outcome for their consumers—and thank you, as well, to officials and parliamentary staff who worked on the bill and to the officials who supported myself during the committee of the whole stage.

With saying that, I commend this very pragmatic bill to the House and look forward to seeing it enacted forthwith.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Kia orana, Madam Speaker. Look, it’s a really sad day when the Parliament has to progress through urgency a bill that has gone through a select committee and then had a very truncated process in the Parliament. The Labour Party will continue to oppose this piece of legislation, as we have done up to this point and through the committee stage, because it is yet another example of the Government stepping away from leadership in this space and doing the right thing.

In essence, what this bill will do is it will water down those policies that really do make a difference in our communities. The changing of this piece of legislation is purely because the Government were not able to put in place any change to the regime that had been put in place to make any real difference. Throughout this whole process, many have been saying that this does feel like déjà vu, because it was just last year that the former transport Minister was progressing the same law change here in the Parliament to say that things were going to work out and it was going to work, and it didn’t. So that’s the prime rationale behind the Government’s inability to be able to deliver in this space.

The Parliament has just gone through a committee stage that is an absolute shambles on behalf of the Government. Now, a lot has been referenced around the regulatory impact statement (RIS). We accept that in urgency, you would expect to have some information coming perhaps late to the piece. What we do not accept, however, is that the documentation that the Government relies on as one key piece—one key ingredient—in determining how they will approach things is not actually made available to members of that committee until the committee stage was well under way. Yet we had the Minister say, “Oh, well, it’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming.”

I don’t blame the staff here on the precinct; I do not want that to be an indication at all. As soon as they got that information, they made it available to members in this House, and it really is an indictment on the Government that they are not wishing to make that information available to outline and to consider and scrutinise the real risks that this bill might bring. It is absolutely shoddy.

Not only that, but the very RIS that was made available to members looks like some sort of internal document with comments in the column about the fact that the motor industry had said that this term means that and all of those sorts of things. That is absolutely shabby—absolutely shabby lawmaking on the part of this Government, and they expect to put the Parliament into urgency to ram through legislation, yet they’re not prepared to do the hard yards and the work to make sure that the people of this House are able to scrutinise legislation so that we can end up with better legislation. We are doing this on behalf of the public because of the truncated period.

The other thing is it’s very disappointing—and I accept that Mr Foster referred to this in his contribution late last night—that the Transport and Infrastructure Committee seems to have made its decision to report this bill back much sooner because of the Minister’s reckons and the Minister wants this to happen. Well, that should not be what drives a truncated select committee process and further adds to what is a sham process from a shabby Government around stuff that is not going to head in the right direction.

To be very clear, the other part of that, of course, is this Amendment Paper that the Minister apparently has been talking about all week. Well, it was only made public yesterday. This is an Amendment Paper that was only made public yesterday that outlined the near 80 percent reduction in fees that would be payable, alongside some other things. How the Government expects members of this House to be able to adequately scrutinise what it is that they’re putting up in a time of urgency is extremely questionable indeed.

We will continue to oppose this bill, because there are a number of changes in it that really don’t serve a positive purpose. The suggestion of extending the lifespan of carbon credits from three years to four years is a prime example of how the Government is prepared to simply water down the standard and how it can be applied to those within the industry. The removal of restrictions in terms of being able to transfer credits between those who import new vehicles and those who may have used vehicles is a further watering down of the standard that was in place. The opportunity to not just tinker with the weight adjustment sort of threshold for vehicles but to basically completely wipe out that entire provision is unfathomable. We all know that heavier vehicles lead to heavier emissions, yet this is a Government that is not prepared to even entertain the thought of maybe having some sort of not a transitional phase but looking at how the actual threshold could perhaps apply differently to those different members of the vehicle fleet based on weight. So this is a Government that is really turning its head in a backward sense and is not prepared to confront the real issues that they face. Of course, they need to take responsibility for this.

Every year, we are starting to see a continual delay of meaningful action on the part of the Government. As costs continue to increase, as emissions continue to rise, particularly in the transport sector—we all know there is a significant component of emissions that can be attributable to the transport sector—the Government needs to be doing something in this space, and what this bill does is the complete opposite. It actually sends a very clear message that this is a tax cut for car dealers rather than the Government prioritising where it can support households to actually enter the market to ensure that they are on a journey to assist with the emissions profile of this country to make a real difference. It’s on that basis that the Labour Party will continue to oppose this bill.

Members, it is time to suspend for the lunch break. The House will resume at 2 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 12.59 p.m. to 2 p.m.

The House is resumed. For those who watch these broadcasts and might not understand why there is no prayer today, it’s because there was a prayer on Tuesday. Technically, we are still in Tuesday because the House is sitting in urgency.