The reasons that we desperately need to improve our energy efficiency are for economic reasons, for social reasons, environmental, and climate change reasons. In 1995, in fact, earlier, the OECD criticized New Zealand for under investing in energy efficiency. The OECD pointed out that, unlike most OECD countries we had no minimum energy performance standards, we had no targets, and we had no track strategy. In fact, if something like a third of the energy that we currently use is wasted, which means that it could be saved at less than the cost of purchasing it, then energy inefficiency is a drag on our economical performance, it is a drag on the bottom lines of business, and it commits us to much higher imports of oil than we would otherwise need to achieve the same intended purpose. Energy efficiency, of course, does not mean going without.
Energy efficiency is a way of achieving the same services with less energy.
Energy conservation is a variety of other ways that reduce total energy consumption, some of which may be behavioural changes. Renewable energy is about the transition that we need to accomplish from fossil fuels to energy based on solar, wind, biofuels, and hydro. This bill is about social outcomes as well. Our society puts our lowest income and most vulnerable people in State housing, which does not have adequate insulation, which does not have adequate water cylinder wraps, which does not have adequate draught stopping, and which does not have adequate damp proofing. Those people either freeze, because they cannot afford energy, or else they are virtually bankrupted by trying to pay the high power bills of running electric heaters to keep a house warm when the heat is constantly escaping out the windows and the roof.