Chris Bishop: Transport Minister on the Government potentially scrapping the Clean Car Standard

The Minister for Transport says scrapping the Clean Car Standard's being considered. 

The standard imposes fees on importers bringing high emitting vehicles into the country.

A Transport Ministry-led review recently involved consultations with the vehicle industry, where they were asked for their thoughts on possible abolishment. 

Chris Bishop says this type of review, by definition, must look at the need for something overall. 

"It would be fair to say not that many people are keen on scrapping it altogether, we're going through a process with industry right now and we do want to see cleaner cars in New Zealand over time."

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Afternoon. There's concerned the government is lining up to scrap
the clean car standard all together. Now, this is the
twin of the ute tax. It's the other part of
the policy which charges importers if they bring in too
many vehicles that produce high carbon emissions. Chris Bishop is
the Minister of Transporting with us. Now, Hi, bish gooday,
would you well, thank you? Would you consider seriously consider

(00:20):
scrapping it, well.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Having a look at it. I mean we're doing a
first principle's review of the scheme, so sort of by
definition that involves, you know, looking at the rationale for
way you need it in the first place. Be fair
to say not not that many people are keen on
scrapping it all together. You know, we're going through a
process with industry right now and you know we do
want to see cleaner cars in New Zealand over time.
But we're doing the first principle's review of the scheme
and the simple reality is it's the old version was

(00:44):
not working. I might remember at the tail end of
last year we had to change it very quickly because
unless we did the price of a whole range of
cars was going to very quickly rise on the first
of January this year because of the way the scheme
was working, so sort of into the idea of a
clean car standard, so that the vehicle fleet, you know,
gets more fuel efficient over time and more carbon friendly.

(01:07):
But we've just got to find something that works, and
that's what we're doing at the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Is this a case of you just having to adjust
how many emissions I suppose you tolerate before this thing
kicks in.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, So basically what happened is Labor set this very
ambitious scheme in place in twenty twenty one or two,
and you know, world leading, but that all comes with costs, right.
We came in in twenty twenty three and adjusted it
and brought it back more in line with comparable jurisdictions,
and as it turned out that even that was very difficult,

(01:39):
and we just couldn't get the supply of vehicles into
the market to the point where all the people doing
the imports we're going to face penalties as a result
of the cars they are importing. Now what does that
mean in practice? That just gets passed on to consumers. Right,
So what was going to happen unless we acted at
the end of last year was the price of a
whole range of cars that many New Zealanders would drive

(02:00):
and buy and rent on a daily basis would have
gone up quite substantially. The amount varied, and it's complicated,
but that would have gone up, there's no doubt about that.
So we stopped that at the end of last year.
We acted. And so everyone's going on about an affordable
New Zealand, including the Labor Party, by the way, they
voted against that. So the Labor Party voted to raise
the price of secondhand and new cars last year, and

(02:23):
they're running the slogan at the moment about how we
need an affordable New Zealand. So they voted to make
cars more expensive last year.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
We've fixed that, okay, now, So am I right in
thinking that what's happened here is you're going out on
a first principles review and going out to consultation. One
of your questions has to be do we get rid
of the thing altogether? The EV lobby group have had
to look at that and got excited. That's basically what's
that's right?

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, yeah, we're just looking at what's the public policy
rationale for it? Is it a good idea? You know?
Is there a market failure here that we need to
try and correct. So we're we're just asking the logical,
sensible questions, will work our way through it, and once
we've made a decision as to what we're going to do, we'll.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Hey, while I've got you, Wayne Brown says, absolutely no way.
Is he giving you your maps so you can see
what the density looks like and.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
What I don't want.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
I didn't him and ask him for the maps.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
No, I didn't.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
I didn't rid in the heralds.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
I know that, but that's not accurate. This is very frustrating.
The letter I wrote to him does not ask for maps.
I'm happy to and I've published the letter or the
letters now online. I asked for a summary of the
zoning changes the government would like. I did not ask
for maps. Map gates over. We've got to, you know,
we've got to stop trying to make map gate happen.
It's not happening.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Thanks very much. Chris Fisher, Minister of Transport, Minister of
Housing and like not really an opponent of Wayne Brown
at all. For more from Heather Duplessy, Allen Drive, listen
live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio