Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Commerce Committee to consider the bill. This bill will encourage—[Interruption]

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I do apologise. The Minister has the floor, so for other members who are leaving the Chamber, would they do so in a way that does not interrupt the Minister speaking.

This bill will encourage innovation, such as emerging energy technologies and business models, so that New Zealand has the ability to respond to its changing environmental and energy objectives. New Zealand’s environmental and energy priorities have been evolving. This Government is committed to improving the efficiency of our energy use and to meeting our climate change commitments. We need a shift in focus to reduce our emissions and improve our energy productivity, and transport energy and process heat are key areas where gains can be made. I am excited about the new and emerging technologies that can be used to realise these opportunities.

Ninety-nine percent of transport energy comes from non-renewable sources, so increasing the uptake of electric vehicles offers huge potential for reducing emissions. The energy that our industries use to create heat for processing—for example, for drying milk—is also largely non-renewable. There are opportunities to improve the efficiency of this energy use and to switch to using renewable energy sources or more efficient non-renewable sources, like gas, instead. Changing business models in the electricity industry are also part of the picture. The bill makes changes to ensure our legislation is fit for purpose and provides for innovation.

The legislative changes in this bill are not large or complex. We found that our legislation does not need much change to provide for this emerging innovation, but the changes we are proposing will make a significant difference. The bill is an omnibus bill in four parts. The bill will amend the Electricity Industry Act 2010, the Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Act 1989, the Land Transport Act 1998, and the Road User Charges Act 2012 to support this focus on reducing emissions and improving energy productivity, while ensuring our legislation can accommodate innovation.

The bill will achieve all this through four key measures. First, the bill will make it possible for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) to focus more on improving New Zealand’s energy productivity and reducing carbon emissions. EECA is the Crown entity that works to encourage, promote, and support energy efficiency, energy conservation, and the use of renewable sources of energy. Under EECA’s current funding model, its entire levy funding—almost half of its total funding—is recovered from the electricity efficiency levy, which can be spent only on electricity efficiency activities. The bill enables the cost of EECA’s activities to be spread across the levies for transport fuels and gas, as well as electricity. This move beyond electricity will enable EECA to use its levy funding to undertake a broader range of activities, giving it flexibility to focus on areas where the gain is the greatest.

An example of this is EECA’s electric vehicles promotional campaign and the low-emission vehicles contestable fund. The bill enables this flexibility in a way that recognises the importance of transparency and accountability, and how levy money is allocated and spent. Regulations will follow to further implement the policy intent. This change also complements parallel work I am undertaking to refresh New Zealand’s energy efficiency and conservation strategy, which drives EECA’s work programme, and the development of wider renewable energy targets for New Zealand.

Secondly, the bill clarifies that a road controlling authority may use its by-law making powers to give electric vehicles access to special vehicle lanes. This measure covers electric vehicles that are powered solely by electric batteries, as well as plug-in hybrid vehicles that operate on a combination of externally charged batteries and a petrol or diesel motor. Electric vehicles offer a way to leverage greater value from New Zealand’s renewable electricity and therefore offer the most potential for emissions reduction while ensuring economic growth. We have seen that allowing electric vehicles in special vehicle lanes is the single-most effective non-financial incentive we can put in place to increase uptake. This is evident in places like Norway and California. It will ultimately be a decision for road controlling authorities like the Transport Agency and the regional councils to balance other transport objectives when deciding which special vehicle lanes to allow electric vehicles access to. I encourage them to seriously consider these matters, but I believe that trials are a good way to initially test this around New Zealand.

Thirdly, the bill will enable heavy electric vehicles, such as electric trucks and buses, to be exempted from road-user charges. This mirrors the current exemption for light electric vehicles. Extending the road-user charges exemption to heavy electric vehicles is a transparent and efficient way to provide a financial incentive to encourage heavy electric vehicles over equivalent conventional heavy vehicles. The intention is that the exemption for heavy electric vehicles will be in place until they comprise 2 percent of the heavy vehicle fleet.

Lastly, the bill clarifies how electricity industry legislation applies to secondary networks. Secondary networks are smaller electricity networks that indirectly connect to the national grid, typically through a local distribution network. They offer a unique business model that is becoming more widespread. Owning and operating a secondary network offers business owners greater opportunities for integrating new energy technologies such as combining solar photovoltaics and battery storage on a residential subdivision and for supplying those to consumers. Such innovations should be encouraged. Consistent treatment under the legislation will help this business model endure. The bill will provide regulatory certainty and improve consumer and market outcomes. It will ensure that consumers on secondary networks have the same access to dispute resolution as consumers on local electricity networks.

The measures contained in this bill will assist the Government and New Zealand to respond to our energy-related challenges and climate change commitments. We need to ensure we target where the greatest gains can be made. The bill enables a focus on transport and process heat. It will encourage innovation by providing for emerging technologies, ensuring evolving business models in the electricity sector are accommodated. Alongside other work the Government has under way, and with concurrent changes to rules and regulations needed to give full effect to some of the bill’s changes, I consider that this bill will make a great contribution to New Zealand’s efforts to reduce our emissions and improve our energy productivity. I commend this bill to the House.

Labour will be supporting this bill to select committee. I do believe that there are some great initiatives in here, but I am very keen to hear what the public has to say about this. One thing that I think the Government could really do to drive innovation is actually lead by example. It would have been a couple of months ago that Mr Bridges, as the Minister, was on television—it was actually a great photo and news opportunity—promoting the registration of the 1,000th electric vehicle. It was a great piece of news because we need to encourage this, but the interesting thing about this is that Mr Bridges turned up to this photo opportunity in this huge, big diesel BMW, got out, had the photo taken, cut the ribbon, jumped back in this huge, big diesel BMW, and drove back to Parliament.

I would have thought that the best way to really provide innovation, and the greatest way to show that the Government is serious about this—certainly when it comes to electric vehicles—is to at least have the Minister of Energy and Resources driven around in an electric vehicle. I would have thought that the Crown fleet should all be electric vehicles, and there is absolutely no reason why it should not be. In fact, I was talking to a gentleman who knows Elon Musk very well. Elon Musk is the chap who invented and owns Tesla Motors. These are incredibly efficient cars, they are very fast cars—they are actually very sexy cars—and they are fantastic cars. I was talking to this gentleman about the fact that the Government talks about electric vehicles and drives these diesels, and I said half-jokingly but half-seriously: “You know what? The Crown fleet should be Teslas.” And this chap said: “Well, I reckon that if the Crown went to Elon Musk and said that it wanted to replace its fleet with a fleet of electric Teslas, Elon Musk would be up for it.” He said: “I can’t speak on behalf of him, but imagine picking up global dignitaries at the airport in a Tesla—in fully electric vehicles.”

💬 David Bennett: How much do they cost?

Mr Bennett, that is leading by example—that is leading by example. Bringing a piece of legislation to the House is all very well, and I like the intent behind it, but the Government has a very important role to play in driving innovation in the sector. I do not know what the future is going to look like in this, but what I do know is that change is happening very quickly. What I also know is that the world of electricity is going to look incredibly different in 10 years’ time to how it does now. We need to be on top of this. So I think I would stand up and applaud the Minister if he had given that speech and he drove around—he could say “I drive an electric vehicle.”, but he cannot. He stands up and gives a speech about the importance of electric vehicles, yet he does not drive one. He stands up and says it is important that the Government is in charge of innovation, and yet it does not innovate.

The Government fleet, according to the Parliamentary Library, is around about 17,000 vehicles, give or take a few. Imagine if the Government had a policy where it said it was going to have an opt-out policy, as opposed to an opt-in policy, around every car in the Government fleet being electric. Let us make an assumption that there are 15,000 Crown cars in the fleet that have the potential to be electric. Let us also make an assumption that they are on three by 1-year leases, which is your stock standard corporate Government lease. Let us make one more assumption that they have a life span of around about 5 years after their 3 years of Government lease. If the Government led by example in this area, there could be 40,000 electric vehicles on our roads simply through Government behaviour—simply through the Government doing the right thing—and yet it does not, or it will not.

That is why I find it quite rich that the Minister of Energy and Resources can stand up here and talk about what those members are going to do with electric vehicles, and yet they do not use them. That is a real shame. I think they actually should. I think the Government should be really driving innovation—pardon the pun—in this sector. This plays into, actually, our global brand. We go out there with this “clean, green” image, and yet Sir Paul Callaghan himself once said: “We believe that we have a clean economy and a clean green image, and do not see the lack of honesty which surrounds this branding. We are merely a small population spread over a large area which provides an impression of clean and green.”

💬 David Bennett: Like your fire truck.

This is where the Government needs to play a role. This is where the Government can make a difference, Mr Bennett, and yet, it will not. Having said that, this legislation is a step in the right direction—a small one when it could take a giant one—but it is a small step. When the Minister, again, talks about what the Government is doing and the way it is innovating, I just go back to the facts. There is something called the World Energy Council. It is a highly renowned body, and the Minister often quotes the World Energy Council. It has something called the Energy Trilemma Index. Over the last 3 years, in terms of energy equity—that is, basically, the affordability of electricity for the whole population—we have dropped from 18th in the world to 28th. In terms of environmental sustainability, we have dropped from 36th to 42nd. We are not doing what is necessary to play into our global brand, which is, in essence, our global competitive advantage. It is why people overseas buy Fonterra milk and Fonterra cheese as opposed to milk and cheese from other countries around the world. The image that goes with our brand is worth—well, in 2005, the then Ministry for Economic Development valued our brand at $20 billion a year, and that was over 10 years ago.

The one thing that this Government has not done enough of is work incredibly hard to enhance that brand to play into our globally competitive advantage, but that is why we are supporting this bill, because it is a start—it is a start. I mean, if we can allow electric vehicles to drive down bus lanes, well, so be it. There are a thousand electric vehicles; there should be ten thousand. The Minister talked about Norway. Every taxi in Norway is a Tesla. This is the sort of stuff that the Government should really be doing to drive innovation in the sector. When I read that the bill is designed to expand the mandate of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA), I have no problem with that, because I think EECA has done a pretty good job so far in looking at ways to drive energy efficiency, but what cannot happen is for EECA to become too diverse or too wide in its mandate but not be given the resources to do a really good job.

My personal view is that EECA dropped the ball when it did not provide a submission on the Government’s proposed transmission pricing methodology. Let me tell you one area where innovation really is driven in an era that has great concerns about the change this Government is making. It is called the Independent Electricity Generators Association. This association represents about 40 small businesses that own electricity-generation plants connected to the local distribution network. This brings diversity to local sources of energy. It drives innovation, and yet this sector is very concerned about the changes that the Government is bringing into the sector. But this is a sector where innovation occurs, and this is a sector we actually need to be providing a level of regulatory support for, not undermining it in a way that could, in effect, stifle innovation. There is no doubt that this is a very innovative sector and there is no doubt that, in some areas, we drive where we are at the top of our game. In terms of electricity generation, we are second behind Norway. We do very well there. We could do better.

In transportation, though—and I have no doubt my colleague Dr Megan Woods will talk about this. About 54 percent of our greenhouse gases come from our transport sector. Anything that will drive innovation in that space is welcomed. There is no doubt about that. But I will just go back to my final point, which I would like to have as the takeaway: the Government should be leading by example in this. This legislation is a case of “Do as I say; don’t do as I do.” The Minister would gain significant credibility not only with the Opposition but also with the general public, whom he is trying to convince, if he started driving a Crown car that was fully electric. That is a Government leading by example. Thank you very much.

I thank the member Stuart Nash, who just took a seat, for his support of this bill to the select committee. But I have to say that I find it rather ironic to actually get a lecture from the Opposition, which cannot even do simple arithmetic on a policy that it announced over the weekend. Having said that, I have to say that Mr Stuart Nash is probably better at maths than Phil Twyford is.

It is a pleasure to take a call on the Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, introduced by the Hon Simon Bridges today. This bill is an omnibus bill, and it amends the Electricity Industry Act 2010, the Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Act 1989, the Land Transport Act 1998, and the Road User Charges Act 2012. This bill also implements the Government’s electric vehicle programme (EVP). This is a comprehensive plan to ensure that New Zealand is able to meet its international commitments regarding climate change and that we can work to improve energy conservation and effectiveness in our transport sector. Positive gains can be made across New Zealand through the implementation of the EVP, and through this legislation, we can work together for the best opportunities on offer for the next generation.

Innovation in energy use and better transport productivity are important for us. Better energy use means lower costs and overall better outcomes for Kiwi families. This can be achieved by measures that will support greater accessibility—accessibility to renewable energy resources—and reduce New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. Although New Zealand should be very proud that we have a very high renewable energy source, we can do more and become world leaders. Our legislation should be fit for purpose and support the future development of New Zealand’s changing transport and energy environment.

As the Minister outlined, there are four measures in the bill, which will be considered by the select committee. The first is that the bill will change how the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) is funded. Under EECA’s current funding model, almost half of its total funding is recovered from the electricity efficiency levy and can be spent only on electricity efficiency activities like the television ads. This bill will enable the cost of EECA’s activities to be spread across a wider range and include the levies from transport fuels and gases alongside electricity. That would actually mean that we probably could do a lot more with the increase in the amount of money that we collect. It means that it probably will give more flexibility to EECA—how it can actually use its funds to support the promotion of things like low emission vehicles, contestable funds.

The second part of it is to allow electric vehicles to access the special vehicle lanes, for example. This amendment will clarify that road-controlling authorities may use their by-law-making powers to create special access lanes in situations where they may wish to support a non-financial incentive such as other countries have actually used to increase the uptake of electric cars and other vehicles in their authority areas. I believe that the Minister mentioned Norway as well as California in his speech.

The third measure is to allow exemptions to road-user charges as a stronger financial incentive for things like electric vehicle uptake, where heavy duty vehicles such as electric trucks and buses would be exempted from such road-user charges for the benefit of increasing their numbers among the wider transport fleet until they actually reach about 2 percent of the heavy vehicle stock in New Zealand.

The fourth and final main measure is that there needs to be clarification on how electricity industry regulation will apply to the secondary network—for example, for people who generate their own power, using batteries or using the sun, and they could actually feed into the electricity network. This legislation may, in fact, support the growth of further innovation from consumers instead of just from the electricity generators.

I believe that this bill is good for New Zealand, and I look forward to the submissions process and the discussions that the select committee will have. It is a good bill, and I commend it to the House.

The Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is the Government’s attempt to make it look as if it is doing something significant about addressing carbon emissions in this country, but of course the New Zealand public is not fooled by that. It does not matter how many times Simon Bridges goes and has a photo opportunity with an electric vehicle; no one is going to be impressed by his tiny target of having just 2 percent of the vehicle fleet being electric by 2021.

💬 Brett Hudson: That’s not the target.

That is his target. His colleagues do not even realise how tiny his target is. He wants to have only 2 percent of the vehicle fleet being electric vehicles—

💬 Brett Hudson: It’s 100 percent wrong.

It is not 100 percent wrong. It is 2 percent by 2021—that is what his tiny target is. It is 64,000 vehicles. That, Mr Hudson, represents 2 percent of the entire fleet—by 2021. So it is underwhelming. In order to bring about this underwhelming target by 2021, it is underpinned by this underwhelming piece of legislation. It is a tiny target.

I recall that back in 2008, when I was debating—and am still debating, actually—in Hamilton the idea of getting a commuter train service between Hamilton and Auckland.

💬 David Bennett: Diesel.

That is right—diesel. Diesel—because it is better than having 200 petrol cars on the road. It is much better for the environment than that.

💬 David Bennett: Oh, you petrolhead!

David Bennett cannot do that maths, but it is. So when we were debating this, David Bennett said in 2008 that that would be a waste of time because in 10 years’ time everyone was going to be driving an electric car—in 10 years’ time from 2008! Well, hang on. Let me do the maths. That would be 2018. David Bennett, National MP, said that by 2018 everyone would be driving an electric vehicle. How underwhelmed and disappointed David Bennett must be with his own Minister of Transport’s announcement that not everyone would be driving an electric motor vehicle by 2018. Not only that, but he wanted only 2 percent—2 percent—of drivers to be driving an electric vehicle by 2021. So I think the National Government has outdone itself. It used to be—what did it used to say—ambitious for New Zealand. I think it has completely given that away, and, now, just 2 percent will do.

Here is the piece of legislation that is going to bring about that tiny target. I agree with Stuart Nash, because what all the evidence and research say is that the thing that is going to really drive the purchase and procurement of electric vehicles by New Zealanders is the purchase price coming down substantially. That is the one thing that will make it really attractive for New Zealanders to do better than have 2 percent of the vehicle fleet being electric by 2021. What is one of the things that the Government could do? What is the best thing the Government could do to bring the purchase price of electric vehicles down? The best thing the Government members could do is to ensure that all of the Government vehicles, all of the Government fleets, as they are replaced, are replaced by electric vehicles. Will they do that? No. They have said: “Oh, we’ll think about it. Oh, we’ll look at a procurement policy.” But have they said: “As a Government, we will lead the way and we will ensure that as our large fleet of Government vehicles gets replaced, they will be replaced with electric vehicles.”? No. They would not even go that far. It is no wonder Simon Bridges will commit only to the tiny target of 2 percent by 2021.

As Stuart Nash said, 40 percent of the carbon emissions in this country come from the transport sector. So that tiny target—2 percent of 40 percent—is barely going to make the difference that we need to make in terms of reducing carbon emissions in this country. The one thing that the Government could do that would make a difference, it has failed to do. Instead, it is tinkering around the edges of things that we know actually do not bring about a big cultural change.

In this bill what it is doing is it is going to allow electric vehicles into bus lanes. How clever is that! Bus lanes set aside for public transport are now going to be cluttered up with cars. How is that going to help? How is that going to reduce carbon emissions? How is that going to ensure that New Zealanders go out and buy electric vehicles? Well, it is just not. We know that it is the purchase price coming down that will allow New Zealanders to go out and buy those vehicles, not any of these silly rules that are actually designed to congest the bus lanes, because that is what is going to happen next. The bus lanes are going to get congested and we know that in Auckland that is a problem already. We know that those bus lanes are already congested with buses. They are full up with buses. Now this Government wants to clog them up further with cars. It wants cars to go and use the bus lanes. It is just nuts.

It also has gone down this route of reducing road-user charges for the heavy electric vehicles. However, the regulatory impact statement tells us that that is already a failed policy. It is already a failed policy. The Government has already put this in place for light electric vehicles. Light electric vehicles are exempt from road-user charges until 2020. Has that made a difference? Has that meant that people have rushed out and bought light electric vehicles? No, it has not. What makes the Government think that this is the magic bullet that is going to address this for buses and trucks when its own advice that it has had is that it does not make any difference?

What the regulatory impact statement says is that electric vehicles currently make up a small proportion of the light and heavy vehicle fleet. In fact, they make up only 0.03 percent of the light vehicle fleet as at 31 January this year. The number of heavy electric vehicles in New Zealand at the moment is 60—six-zero of them are currently in New Zealand. However, what the regulatory impact statement points out is that even though the light electric vehicles have been exempt from road-user charges already, that has not made a blind bit of difference in terms of the uptake of them.

This is because—and I am going to say it again—we know that the thing that drives the uptake of electric vehicles is bringing the purchase price down and, sadly, neither of those two measures attempts to do that. What the Government has done is it has reduced the cost for light electric vehicles, with the road-user charge exemption of about $558 per vehicle. It has meant that there is less money available in the National Land Transport Fund to actually fund transport projects, but it does not mean that there has been any discernible increased uptake in the purchase of light electric vehicles. It has, though, under the regulatory impact statement, robbed the National Land Transport Fund of around $500,000 per year already. What we have got the Government coming to the House and proposing to do is to reduce the amount of money available for the National Land Transport Fund, which funds all of the other transport policies and all of our infrastructure, but it does not do anything to increase the number of electric vehicles that are purchased.

The one thing that will work in that area is bringing the purchase price down. The one way in which the Government can do that is to lead by example and use its huge purchasing power with the very large Government fleet—yes, I am talking ministerial cars—and, also, all the cars used by our core Government departments. This Government could have and should have said that it would use its procurement to buy electric vehicles in order to build the fleet up for second-hand car sales of electric vehicles, and, therefore, bring the purchase price down, but it has failed to do that. Instead, it has set itself a tiny target and has brought this underwhelming bill forward to underpin that.

It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in this, its first reading. It comes as no surprise, after this past weekend, for us to realise that Labour and numbers just do not go together. Those members did not get them right on the weekend, and it is no wonder at all that they cannot get them right now, either. Ms Moroney does not understand the difference between a minimum and a maximum. The Government has a target of looking to stimulate the uptake of electric vehicles. It does not say: “Once you get to 2 percent, stop.” The other part of the 2 percent, of course, is that that is the threshold for when the road-user charge exemption will be removed. What the Government is looking to do is to stimulate the uptake of these vehicles, not pay for them for the rest of their lives.

The other thing the member clearly did not understand is the nature of total cost of ownership. By creating this stimulus for both heavy and previously light vehicles, the Government is helping to reduce the total cost of ownership for those early adopters—those people who choose to take advantage of this stimulus for their own reasons and purchase those electric vehicles. It is helping to drive adoption, without going to the point of just buying these vehicles for people, which is the Labour Party’s standard policy approach to most things.

But it is really odd: the member says in one breath that 2 percent is pathetically low and the Government should be criticised. In the very next sentence she says: “You’re going to clog up the bus lanes with your 2 percent, which is pathetically low.” How you square that circle is absolutely unknown to man or beast, I would argue.

The other point I would like to make, given the Labour members have said the Government should be doing this for its fleet, is wake up and smell the coffee, because back in August the Minister of Transport announced that the Government would be looking to pool the purchasing power of both the Government and the private sector to help to drive the capital cost of electric vehicles down by creating greater demand.

Secondly, let us make this clear. Mr Stuart Nash drives a Bedford TK fire engine, which spews belching emissions all over Hawke’s Bay, and he says we should be driving electric vehicles. Maybe he should try eating his own dog-food. Let us also point out that the ministerial BMW fleet that exists today was a pre-order from the previous Labour Government, and the reason it gave was low carbon emissions. Those people just cannot do anything with any consistency.

This is a good bill. It will advance measures to help meet emission controls and targets. It will actually help to drive us to be a lower-emitting country, and I commend it to the House.

I am keen to speak on this bill because it does represent an area that I am greatly passionate about. In my whole career, I have been interested in finding positive solutions to climate change, because I care deeply about the future of our people and our planet. I know that most New Zealanders share that concern and share those values. They care about the long term and they want to see the Government implementing smart solutions that are going to look after our precious natural environment and our people.

Unfortunately, this National Government is letting New Zealanders down. I think it means well. Certainly, it does demonstrate that the Greens have shown enormous leadership over the past decade or two that now every party in Parliament is talking seriously about the need to respond to climate change and is in support of clean, green transport. That is a huge win for the Green Party, which has been talking about climate change and clean electric vehicle policy the longest, I think, of any party in Parliament. But the truth is that this National Government, although it means well and has changed its rhetoric, is far more focused on the short term and on getting those PR wins that make it look like it is taking action, when fundamentally its policy is not going to create the changes that New Zealanders really need. This policy in particular falls well short of one that would actually make it easier for more New Zealand families and businesses to afford electric vehicles.

The Green Party will support the bill because these changes that it is proposing to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) levies and transport levies are quite good. That is pretty straightforward. Basically, it is allowing the levy collected from the electricity industry to be spent on other areas, like transport—so energy efficiency, not just electricity efficiency—and allowing the existing petrol and diesel levies to be used to fund EECA. I think that makes a lot of sense, because, obviously, energy conservation and efficiency are more than just electricity, particularly with New Zealand’s profile, where about half of our climate pollution from energy comes from transport, not from electricity.

Of course, we need a strategy to ensure that we have a greater percentage of renewable electricity in New Zealand—that is something National is failing to deliver, unfortunately—and we need a smarter approach to transport. If the Government were really serious and really enthusiastic about electric vehicles, then it would implement policy that would actually accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles in New Zealand. But we know that its strategy is not going to do that. The very targets that it has adopted are actually lower than what Ministry of Transport officials forecast would happen without any policy assistance.

So although Simon Bridges, the Minister of Transport, is quite keen to be seen in every photo op with a new piece of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, the reality is that this Government has done nothing to incentivise or financially support the installation of that charging infrastructure. That is something that one could have reasonably expected it to do if it wanted to have more electric vehicles in New Zealand. That is what countries like Norway, which has succeeded in massively increasing the number of electric vehicles on the road, have done: they had Government support for electric charging infrastructure across the country. That would be the Green Party’s policy.

The next part of the policy that is incredibly short-sighted, and was actually very much discouraged by the officials, is the policy of allowing electric vehicles to use bus lanes and public transport lanes. If you want really efficient transport—transport that not only is energy efficient but also is going to move more people and goods in crowded urban areas—the smartest way to do that is to build a fast, modern public transport network and use rail to get goods to and from the port, not to put more trucks on Auckland’s already overcrowded roads.

Amazingly, that type of infrastructure is far more cost effective and entirely affordable, and yet the National Government has not been properly investing in it, even though it is going to give us the greatest bang for buck in terms of our next dollar spent in transport. In terms not just of reducing pollution but of actually making it easier for people to get to work and get to school and for those goods to get to and from the port, the best way to do that is to put more of our capital investment into our rail network and to protect those busways that we have already built. The Northern Busway is now moving as many people as all of the lanes on the Auckland Harbour Bridge at peak time. Why would we make that less efficient by allowing a few people in electric vehicles to use it?

I guarantee that that is not going to be the incentive that makes it easier for households to afford an electric vehicle. Ultimately it is going to be the well-off people who have the money—who are able to spend $60,000 on a new electric vehicle—who are going to benefit from being able to use the bus lane, and it is actually going to make it harder for 50 people on the bus to get to work. Does that seem fair? Does that seem efficient? No. It is a terrible idea, and that is why Norway, which actually had this policy, is phasing it out. It disrupts the provision of efficient public transport services, which can move many times more people. A busway can move 10,000 people an hour. A railway can move 20,000 people an hour. This is why electric vehicles cannot compete with public transport for moving people in busy, crowded urban areas like Auckland.

I have news for the National Government. I have been campaigning on the North Shore rail project on the North Shore. We have been surveying people of the North Shore. There is virtually 100 percent support for that project. That is what people want—and I would say half or more of the people whom we talked to voted for the National Party. So it is time to get with the programme and deliver what people actually want, what is actually going to work and be more cost effective.

Finally, the road-user charge exemptions for electric vehicles are not the most effective way of delivering affordable electric vehicles for businesses or households. Even Treasury said that in its advice to the Minister. We have, under the Official Information Act, advice from Treasury saying it does not make sense to spend this money exempting the road-user charges. We need those road-user charges to pay for the transport network. I mean, if you are going to have many more people using electric vehicles then it is going to create a whole lot of congestion. How are we going to invest in the capital infrastructure that is going to deal with that, if we are not charging for the use of the road? That does not really make much sense. What would make sense is using the money to reduce the purchase price of electric vehicles, and actually making it more affordable for people to buy the electric vehicle in the first place.

That is why the Green Party has a comprehensive electric vehicle policy, which will work. Unsurprisingly, since we were the first party that was really campaigning seriously on climate change and coming up with the solutions, we have the most practical policy. It is very simple: (1) Government invests in infrastructure that is going to move more people and goods; (2) Government invests in infrastructure, like electric charge infrastructure, and supports private business to do that, but coordinates both the public and private installation of that infrastructure to ensure that there is a network that people can use; and (3) Government procurement—I know my colleagues in the Labour Party have been talking about this, and it is incredibly important from a leadership perspective.

The Government is spending huge sums of money on vehicles, both for Cabinet Ministers and across the whole of Government, whether it is for district health boards or whether it is for Corrections, there are all sorts of Government vehicles. Where possible, we should be prioritising the purchase of electric vehicles and clean vehicles. It is better for New Zealand. It is better for the long term. It makes sense, and if we are going to spend the money, we might as well do it in a way that is going to look after the environment.

Finally, the Green Party looked at the policies that have been effective around the world at increasing the uptake of electric vehicles. In Norway they had a huge tax on vehicles—all of their new cars were subject to this big tax. They exempted electric vehicles from the tax, and now one out of four new vehicles being sold in Norway is electric. By 2025, one will not be allowed to purchase a diesel or petrol vehicle; it will only be electric. It has been incredibly effective, and it was that—reducing the purchase price of electric vehicles—that worked.

We do not have a big tax on vehicles here in New Zealand, but we do have the fringe benefit tax. In fact, 80 percent of the new vehicles that are brought into this country are company cars. So we said: “Why don’t we have an exemption for fringe benefit tax on electric vehicles for 7 years?”. It would really give that incentive to businesses to buy electric vehicles. They would save money on the operating costs as well. Giving that possibility of dropping the cost will make it much more attractive to buy an electric vehicle, and within 3 to 5 years we will have developed a second-hand electric vehicle market, so ordinary households in New Zealand can buy an electric vehicle.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Can I just say—and I know it is being a bit trite—but I can just imagine Mr Bridges in consultation with his ministry staff as they came into the office and told him: “Sir, we are going to call it ‘Energy Innovation’.” You can just imagine his excitement. You know, “Oh, that’s excellent! That’s fantastic!”—he would say—“It sends a message to New Zealanders about how innovative the Government really is. It does, doesn’t it? It sends a message, right? We’re more innovative than all the rest combined. Is there any way”—he would say—“that we can take an innovative photo to go with that?”. Here we are. It is not that innovative, and I think, unfortunately, the Minister of Transport has let the people of New Zealand down with this legislation. Although, to be fair, unlike much of the legislation that New Zealand First has opposed in the past—where the intent sounds wonderful, but, actually, the opposite effect would take hold—at least with this legislation I can, with some pleasure, stand up on behalf of New Zealand First and say that, actually, the intent is there. Once we have read the legislation and got feedback from industry, it might make a tiny, little bit of difference, and it will not actually do the damage that other pieces of legislation that this National Government has put through the House have. Here I am with great pleasure—

💬 Jono Naylor: How gracious of you!

—great pleasure, Mr Naylor—saying that New Zealand First will support this piece of legislation through its first reading.

💬 Jono Naylor: Finally.

That is another debate, but anyway—that is another debate. To be fair, this is taking some tiny baby steps in the right direction. We think we will support it all the way through. It is important to note that there was previously an engagement with industry and there was not much that was negative, but I will highlight what the feedback was because I think that the Minister needs to take that on board in terms of how to move forward with the support of business and industry, and not just the support of the energy sector. I will bring that up in a moment.

I think we have a bill designed to encourage the take-up of electric vehicles, if we listen to the Minister and those on the other side of the House. Can I say to the Minister that this bill will be as significant and as helpful as the 2 percent threshold placed on the heavy vehicle fleet. For example, when I first started reading the legislation, I was actually quite excited by the prospect of the road user charges exemption being moved up to the heavy vehicle fleet. I thought, as inefficient as it is—as noted by a previous speaker—it is something meaningful and tangible that industry could get its teeth into and move forward. Then you read further on, and—credit to the Minister, he said it himself—“Actually, we’ll only give it to 2 percent of the fleet.” When you do the numbers, given last year’s figures, there are several hundred thousand in that heavy vehicle fleet already, and so this would then apply to fewer than 3,000 heavy vehicle units on the road. From an everyday New Zealander’s perspective, I do not think that that—in their mind—would be a tangible take-up, or make any kind of significant difference. I would like to add to that that it is not the most efficient use of funding. I think that what you want to do is put some money down to actually encourage the uptake of commercial vehicles by private users. So it was disappointing, to say the least.

What I wanted to touch on were the broader issues. The Minister said—and I will find a quote here; here it is: “The transport and industrial sectors are areas where the most impact can be made on improving New Zealand’s energy productivity and reducing emissions.” What I would like to point out to the Minister is that he has, kind of, completely overlooked the area of transport where most gains could be made. I speak specifically about light rail, the electrification of the New Zealand rail network—and this is a Minister who has overseen the rail network being de-electrified. He said how important it is—he is quoted publicly as saying how important it is—to our commitments to Paris, and yet this is a Minister who has overseen the de-electrification of the rail network. Not only that, he has seen the closing down of sections of rail, and then—what do you know—a year or two later, the Government has decided that, despite its predisposed opposition to rail for some unknown reason, it would have to open up that link again because it was the most efficient way of moving goods on our national infrastructure.

The bill is quite narrow in focus, but, as I have said, I acknowledge today that National is taking baby steps in the right direction—although the business sector has already moved out in front of it quite significantly, so it is already behind the eight ball there and it needs to step up to the mark. It is probably the opportune time to point out that perhaps the Minister himself could at least make his limo an electric vehicle. That might send some signals, and it might be the start of a practical solution to the problem that the National Government has acknowledged that this country has.

We need the legislation, but, as I intimated earlier, what we had in engagement with industry slightly before this legislation came to the House was feedback from a significant number of those who were spoken to, who came back and said: “What you’re doing right now is expanding the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority’s (EECA’s) mandate. You’re giving them more money, and you’re taking it from different pools, but you haven’t told us how they are going to use those funds.” For example, this legislation broadens EECA’s mandate quite significantly, and in so doing there will now be a combined energy levy. It is going to consult and report annually, and I think, when you consider the background of the National Government over there, consulting and reporting annually is a huge, huge step forward in terms of transparency and accountability for the National Government—so we are halfway there.

What the industry wanted was a logical link to show how that money was being taken from it, and how it was being used for it. That is fair enough. They are not saying they need a plan—that we need a definitive plan. I think several members in the House have acknowledged the industry is innovative, and they want to move forward themselves. But they want some reassurance. They want what they coined as “rationality”. I think they have every reason to be concerned, and the Minister needs to take that into account. The legislation, bearing in mind this was a consultation document, has not done so in this first draft of the bill. So that is something for the Minister to consider. The Minister has much to consider. There is basically no time to delay. New Zealand does need to act, and we need to act quickly, which is why these mini steps are important. They will not do the opposite to what the intent says they will, so we will be supporting the bill at its first reading.

But the Minister described this bill as enabling great initiatives that empower and encourage the take-up of e-vehicles, such as non-financial options like allowing e-vehicles to use the bus lanes. This bill does not actually do that. We are going to need another Minister to enable that. Actually, by not mandating that centrally they are giving councils the right to make that decision. And there is another whole debating point for the House to consider, about whether central government is brave enough to say: “Let’s do it, or let’s not. Let’s not fob it off to councils.”

I would like to point out to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment and the Minister of Education that in doing some analysis for this bill we realised, when engaging with industry, that there are no—or so significantly few—electric vehicle mechanics right now in New Zealand that an uptake of any magnitude would not be taken up well by the industry itself. I put it as a question to the Minister, and to those Ministers: “Does the industry need help in terms of training and upskilling young New Zealand workers to cope with this?”. To conclude, this bill is a start. It could even be described as a good start, which is why New Zealand First will support it today. It does not make it any easier to buy an electric vehicle. It does not make access to charging stations any easier across the country. But for the National Party it is something slightly more than nothing. Thank you.

I am very pleased to take a call on the Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I just have to take a little bit of umbrage with the previous speaker’s metaphors—talking about baby steps. I need to remind him that this is actually about cars and vehicles. You do not step in a car, unless you are a Flintstone, which might be representative of a party past. He also talked about being behind the eight ball. Again, it is very hard to be behind the eight ball on a road, because normally the eight ball is on a pool table, which is just to our left here.

Already we are seeing the Opposition being somewhat confused. We have also seen a whole lot of confusion, particularly from those members of the Labour Party who are great supporters of diesel trains and diesel-belching fire engines. They have been standing and standing and moralising, if you will, to a degree, around these important steps. I will come back to that in a moment.

This is an omnibus bill. It is in four parts, as the Minister has indicated. I am not going to go through all or each of them. One of them is ultimately around what the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority can do. At the moment you will be familiar with the ads on TV around how one conserves electricity. This bill basically allows it to extend. The other areas are around the use—as has been mentioned, mockingly unfortunately, many times—of bus lanes. I just encourage members to come to my electorate, to the likes of Tāmaki Drive, to find the T2 lanes and what the bus lanes are used for. They are not actually packed full. Maybe that works in the land that Labour and the Greens inhabit, but in reality they are not overly used and, actually, it would be a welcome opportunity, I would argue, for taxis and other vehicles to use them as well. These recommendations are very positive.

I just return to my initial theme around the moralising, particularly around the point that the Government should go out and buy 17,000 electric vehicles from Elon Musk. Firstly, as a negotiator in the past, I can say that you never tell the people you are going to buy from that you want to. It is a very quick way to get a very inflated price. I am just going to throw that out there—not that corporate experience is the strong point on the other side. But the other element too is that actually they will be the first parties to complain that we did not spend the extra millions of dollars that we spent on electric vehicles on the homeless and housing, on social welfare, and on education and the like.

The good news, of course, is that we are very prudent in the way we spend money on the vehicles in the ministerial and ministry fleets, and, really importantly too, we are already spending an enormous amount of money in the social services space. I know that the Minister who has recently announced $300 million for emergency housing is in the House. It is just tremendous. So cars, housing, you name it—I am going to end it there.

A 5-minute call on behalf of the Green Party—James Shaw.

I rise to take a call on the Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I just want to start by talking about how excited the Government of course is about this announcement. It has been a long time coming, this piece of legislation. It was first announced on 5 May, and it was then announced again on 10 June, and then again on 12 August, and then again on 24 August, and then again on 31 August, and then again on 9 September, and then again, 3 days later, on 12 September, and then again on 14 September. This bill has been announced no fewer than eight times since 5 May, so it is great to see a piece of legislation that actually backs up the eight announcements of this policy in the last 6 months.

The Government having announced this bill eight times, of course, I need to draw attention to the Treasury advice, which is that it “will not be effective”. In particular, I am talking about the part of the legislation that relates to electric vehicles. I will come back to that in a minute.

First, I just want to say why it is important that we encourage the mass take-up of electric vehicles in New Zealand—that we really pull out the stops on this. First of all, transport makes up 20 percent of all of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, and 90 percent of transport emissions come from ground vehicle transport. So if we were able to click our fingers and switch all of New Zealand’s ground vehicle transport to electrics, then you would see an enormous decrease in our greenhouse gas emissions. On that front alone, it is very important that we encourage the mass take-up of electric vehicles.

The other thing, of course, is that it would do wonders for our balance of payments deficit. Our balance of payments deficit at the moment is running at just over somewhere between $7 billion and $8 billion, and we import about $6 billion worth of petrol and diesel into New Zealand—petroleum for our ground vehicle transport. The mass take-up of electric vehicles would virtually close our balance of payments deficit.

However, the legislation, as it has been supplied to us so far, will not do this. As Treasury says, it will not actually be effective in encouraging the mass take-up of electric vehicles, cutting pollution, and reducing our balance of payments deficit.

The single most significant policy that the Government could adopt in order to encourage the mass take-up of electric vehicles, is to remove fringe benefit tax from electric corporate fleet vehicles. Something like 80 to 90 percent of all new vehicles sold in New Zealand are corporate fleet vehicles, and they typically remain part of the fleet for about 3 to 5 years before becoming part of the second-hand market, which is, of course, where the vast majority of New Zealanders get their vehicles from. The research that the Green Party did at the end of last year and at the beginning of this year showed that around the world, in those countries that have got really significant take-up of electric vehicles—most notably Norway, but also others—removing fringe benefit tax was the single most significant thing that you could do. It would drop the upfront price of the vehicles by somewhere between 20 and 30 percent, which would put them on a par with combustion engine vehicles.

Companies want this. I mean, this policy was actually suggested by Business New Zealand, which, you would think, would be a natural ally of the National Party on this policy. So we think, and we are hoping, that in the select committee stage we can encourage the Government to change the bill in order to adopt this one measure that will actually do what the Government wants the bill to do, which is to encourage the mass take-up of electric vehicles.

I do have to reference this absurd notion saying that electric vehicles using bus lanes will somehow convert everybody in the country to go out and spend twice as much money on an electric vehicle as they currently spend on a combustion engine vehicle. It is going to increase congestion, but it is not going to encourage the mass take-up of electric vehicles. What it means is that people who have got a significant amount of money and can afford an electric vehicle will get a fast ride down the bus lane, and everybody else—the vast majority of people, who cannot afford one of these vehicles—will be stuck in congestion in the regular lanes. It is an absurd policy, and the only people whom it is going to encourage to buy electric vehicles are extremely well-off people who, frankly, if they want one, can buy one already. It is a ridiculous policy, which is presumably why Treasury said it will not be effective.

In conclusion, we are supporting this bill to select committee. We will be looking to make improvements to the electric vehicles clauses and the microgrids regulatory clauses, but, in the meantime, we support this bill.

I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to cautiously support this Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in its first reading. I say “cautiously” because much of the bill seems to rest on a contradiction: that on the one hand, new technologies and electric vehicles are very, very good—but not good enough that people will use them without being prodded by the Government. The fact of the matter is that if we want a neutral treatment of different technologies so that consumers can choose—based on what is most efficient for their particular purposes, weighing up all of the costs and benefits using information about their preferences, known only to them—then we already offer a very significant subsidy to people adopting electric vehicles. That is just the very simple fact that electric vehicles do not use petrol and, therefore, are not subject to the major form of revenue, or the major tax, that the New Zealand Government puts on people driving.

So, acknowledging that, the bill actually seeks to further extend this subsidy to a class of vehicles that would, by happenstance, be exempt from that particular subsidy—and that is the heavy electric vehicle class, up to the point where they get to 2 percent. I have to concur with my colleague James Shaw’s comment in which he said that the use of high-occupancy and public transit lanes by electric vehicles is not a suitable inducement for people to buy electric vehicles. This is not because it will not be as effective—as James Shaw claimed—but simply because, to the extent that it is effective, it will be ruining the purpose of high-occupancy transit lanes, which is to increase the number of people who travel on a given section of road. So, all of a sudden, you have people purchasing electric vehicles to access a benefit that was actually designed to deliver a completely different policy outcome—which was increasing the capacity of a particular length of road.

This is a sort of omnibus bill, and the fourth section is much more interesting. I think that the various initiatives to increase the uptake of electric vehicles are, frankly, dubious at best. I have not mentioned the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority’s extension of funding to try to promote people to pick up electric vehicles, but it does seem ironic that the Government has various initiatives under way to suppress consumers finding information about nicotine and sugar and alcohol and all sorts of other things that they like to buy, and yet when we find something that is truly good, the Government has to spend money in order that people find out about that particular product. It is a very cynical view of New Zealand citizens: that we have to stop them finding out about things we do not want them to know about and then, when really good things come along, they need us to take their money and spend a million dollars a year encouraging them to find out about electric vehicles. As if there were really people—I asked the Minister of Transport about this in the House a few months ago, and he said he could not tell whether there were people out there who did not know electric vehicles were more efficient but none the less he is prepared to spend a million dollars on it.

The secondary network section, applying the same regulation as we apply to electricity distributors to secondary networks—private networks of electricity distribution that might take place in an apartment building or an industrial complex, and so on—is something that I think we really have to watch for the submissions that will come forward at the select committee stage. In principle, we have to acknowledge that there is enormous innovation going on in the electricity transmission, distribution, and retail space—absolutely enormous innovation. People are setting up peer-to-peer networks, selling and storing electricity with solar panels and batteries, and so on. However, the devil with these things is always in the detail, and it will be interesting to see what the select committee has to say or what it hears about the practical effects of bringing secondary networks into the traditional distribution regulatory scheme.

So it is an interesting bill, one that has tried to, I guess, pick winners and pick a particularly trendy technology to promote over others while distorting the regulatory framework. I think that is very regrettable, but on the strength of the secondary networks aspect I will be happy to see what people say at the select committee on this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak on the Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill at its first reading. Many, many viewpoints have been discussed in the past hour or so as we debate this bill. But I think it is a great bill, and it will encourage further—

💬 David Seymour: Tell us why.

—I am telling you; just listen to it—innovation in the energy sector. As we know, and as the previous speaker, David Seymour, just mentioned, there is a lot of innovation happening in the sector, and new batteries are being built that can store a lot of energy. If we look at the capacity of electric vehicles, earlier it was very difficult for them to last a whole day, but today the technology available means that new electric vehicles can be driven for up to 500 or 600 kilometres in a day without needing to be charged. That means that the technology is coming, and this bill will help to encourage that innovation to continue.

National is committed to finding ways to reduce greenhouse emissions, and this bill is another step towards that. New and emerging technologies offer scope for us to improve the efficiency of our energy usage, which offers economy-wide benefits while also complementing efforts to meet our international commitments to global efforts to manage climate change.

One thing I would also like to mention is that the majority of the energy being used right now in transport is not renewable, but by having vehicles that are battery operated or electricity operated, we can use renewable energy. That will help us to reduce greenhouse emissions, and it will also enhance our commitment as a signatory to various treaties around the world.

I look forward to the select committee process when the bill comes to the Commerce Committee, and I hope that we will have good input from the stakeholders. That will help us to enhance the bill. With these words, I commend this bill to the House.

I sit on the Commerce Committee, where this bill will come, and I am looking forward to the discussions at the select committee on this, but when I first saw the title of this bill and thought “Ah, what’s this about?”, I felt a frisson of excitement that—

💬 Richard Prosser: A croissant—a breakfast of excitement.

No, not a croissant—a frisson. Ha, ha! I felt a little bit excited that there was a plan—there was a plan—and that Simon Bridges was finally going to come good. He was going to come good. He talks a big game sometimes and he gets very excited—electric vehicles are probably one of the things that he gets most excited about. I think James Shaw mentioned how many times he had announced this—not exactly this bill, but he made the same announcement eight times, because, I think, it was just so exciting. I thought that we were finally going to have a bit of a plan around energy innovation and that the Government is taking this seriously, that it is starting to practise what it preaches around curbing emissions and looking at how the energy sector and the transport sector can actually seriously contribute to that.

So I have been looking through and I cannot find the plan, but maybe when the bill gets to the select committee—because it is essentially a series of small piecemeal measures that, when they all add up, do not add up to a plan. It is going to be interesting when we get to the select committee as to what policy initiatives lay behind them. That is, I think, certainly what I will be asking at the select committee.

It reminds me of—every time Labour talks about its Future of Work project, which has just been announced at the weekend—a 2-year project, with nearly half of the Labour caucus involved. It is a very serious joined-up piece of work looking at a major issue. In the next 10 to 15 years, 45 percent of jobs that exist now in New Zealand are unlikely to exist. It reminds me of what Simon Bridges does every time the Future of Work gets some traction: he leaps up and starts talking about driverless pizza delivery cars—that that is somehow something to do with the Future of Work.

We make the point that we want New Zealanders to be having the ideas and designing the inventions behind new technology and new ideas in New Zealand, and not be the receivers of pizza through driverless cars—our Future of Work project is about the people who make those pizzas.

It feels to me very much as if there is a “small beer” approach being taken by the Government on all of these sorts of issues, and it is very much lip-service. You can imagine Simon Bridges speaking about this at Cabinet and saying: “Oh look, let’s give it a grand name like energy innovation and make it sound as though it is something much bigger than it actually is.” Well, there is no plan, and that is very disappointing. So that is the first point I want to make.

The second point is, essentially, that listening to my colleague Sue Moroney talk about the tiny targets of Simon Bridges, and also listening to the Greens talk, particularly Julie Anne Genter, about some of the energy innovation to do with transport that is coming out of Norway—and that is just one example—made me go and actually have a look. I have not had much time to do this, but, actually, if you want to talk about a plan for energy innovation related to transport, how about this? Norway is working on a whole series of projects, and I will give you the names of some of them: Nordic Sustainable Intelligent Truck Hub, Nordic Comparison on the Future of Road Freight Energy Efficiency and CO2 Emissions, Alcohol (Spirits) and Ethers as Marine Fuel, Nordic Sustainable Logistics Network, Sustainable Transport through Improved Actor Interfaces, Cleaner City Freight Transport, Nordic Incentives for Electric Cars—I think that is where the point that she was making was, and that is just one project; there is a lot of work happening in Norway on that—Electrifying the Seaways, Mapping Electric Fuel Stations, Testing the Driving Range of Electrical Vehicles, and a project called Nordic Electric Avenue.

That sounds like a plan to me. That sounds like a major plan where not only has there been a lot of research that has gone into the different parts of the economy that are impacted but it is about how Norway is using this kind of research and these kinds of innovative projects to build its own IP—that is intellectual property, for anyone on the Government side who maybe does not know what I am talking about—that it can then offer to the rest of the world and add value to the rest of the world when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions. But instead we have got this little piecemeal piece of legislation coming before us that takes a few measures and puts them in a framework that it calls energy innovation.

Well, I am putting the Government on notice: when this legislation gets to the select committee, we will be asking questions about what analysis has been done on what value this will add to our economy, what the carbon dioxide emissions are that will result from this, how this is being measured back to New Zealand’s commitment through the Paris Agreement, and where it fits in with a wider plan in New Zealand around reducing our emissions and what we have signed up to in terms of that.

Instead, we have got just a few small things: making changes to the levy funding for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA)—I am not diminishing these things, but they are not exactly major strategies around energy innovation—and clarifying how electricity industry legislation applies to secondary networks. If you read the regulatory impact statement, that seems to be its major focus as to what the impact will be on secondary networks and how the legislation needs to take care around that. I am not diminishing the importance of that. We have got to get things right in legislation and we have got to do things the right way, but it does not sound very groundbreaking or earth-shattering when you are thinking where this is going to fit in a wider energy innovation plan.

Of course there is also creating new road-user charge exemptions, enabling electric vehicles to be exempted from road-user charges in the same way that light electric vehicles are, proposing that EECA is able to access funding through the Petroleum or Engine Fuel Monitoring Levy and the gas levy, and again going back to clarifying the application to secondary networks.

I am disappointed. I think the Green members are certainly disappointed, and I am hoping that they will make a major contribution at the select committee as to how we could be doing it better. I hope that that gets through to the New Zealand public, because it is, quite frankly, embarrassing to be standing in the House this afternoon, talking about a bill that is titled Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill when those “Other Matters” could actually be a plan that New Zealand could use to hold its head up high, show what an innovative nation it is, and actually use this piece of legislation to drive our economy, develop intellectual property and new inventions, and create new jobs. Instead it is all a bit pathetic. We support this bill, but it is a major disappointment.

I rise to take, I think, the final call on this bill, the Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Clare Curran has made a speech. I was a little bit sort of confused because the analogy that I heard was a croissant of excitement, which ended up in a disappointment.

💬 Clare Curran: Frisson.

A “crisson”—a “crisson”, a croissant; it sort of sounded very similar—and then it went on to pizzas. I am not sure how they connect with electricity, but I do know that croissants are cooked in an oven, so that is electric, but pizzas—the best sort of pizza is cooked in a wood-fired oven, so I am not sure how that connects with electricity.

Look, some of the comments that were made by the member were quite interesting. She said that there is not a plan, and maybe if the members just talked about the bill in itself, then one could come to that conclusion. But if they look at what has actually been happening previously—I want to draw the member’s attention to some of the plans. The first thing you would do in a plan is you would have a feasibility study and you would engage with the sector. We know that on 31 August that is exactly what happened. Minister Joyce, along with Minister Bridges, announced the procurement changes to drive electric vehicle uptake. So that whole change was in consultation.

There was a feasibility study that was done, so the member might like to read that, because that has been part of what you would call formulating a plan. That was the consultation. There was what they call an all-of-Government panel, which was in discussion to talk about, in the procurement changes, how we could make it more affordable. Mr James Shaw talked about the fleet leasing of vehicles, which makes up about 70 percent of our new vehicles in New Zealand—what we could do in that regard.

So I would just like to let the member Clare Curran know that those are some—she is about to go, but just before she goes there are a few other things that she may want to be made aware of. We had the electric vehicles contestable fund. That was a way of engaging into the community to be able to talk about the importance of how this fund could be used in a way to, again, promote the key messages around electric vehicles—how they can be beneficial to communities and to consumers. Those things were important. There were 14 areas that were engaged on in the area. There was Electric Vehicle Day, when there was a campaign that was constructed to ensure that more of this information was out there.

I know the previous speaker, Clare Curran, talked about the lack of a plan. There was consultation with the sector, there was a feasibility plan, and there was engagement with regard to rolling out the key information to ensure that the community realises the benefits from electric vehicles. That has been carried out. There is a contestable fund of over a million dollars to ensure that we can have this part of that process ongoing, as well. This bill is only one part. It ensures that there is an exemption that will allow for electric vehicles—it also means there is an opportunity to use the lanes that we know are set aside for bus lanes. There are opportunities there.

I would say it is not about a lack of a plan. In fact, I think it is well-thought-out. I think it is putting it forward.

The previous speaker and the Labour Party are talking about Labour’s release on the focus on work, I think it is called, and yet in this Government we are just getting on and doing things that make the difference. For instance, in emergency housing, there is $300 million and 1,400 places available right throughout the country—600 in Auckland and 800 throughout the rest of New Zealand. Those are the sorts of things that this Government is about.

This Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is about scoping more of that. We look forward to the submissions that will come forward from the sector.

We are glad to hear that right across the House people are supportive of this bill. We will support it going to the Commerce Committee. We have got a great chair, who will take us through hearing these submissions. We look forward to returning this bill and the report to the House. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Commerce Committee.