SpeechHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Thank you. I'm pleased to take a call for the Green Party on the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill. It's a good bill but it doesn't go far enough. But just going back to the 2018-19 review—Mr Speaker could I ask you to ask other members in front of me not to talk loudly and interrupt? Thank you they've stopped.So going back to what I was saying this bill does implement a really important recommendation from the 2018-19 review by Miriam Dean QC and others and that was that there be a consumer advocacy council established because there was strong evidence to the review that consumers don't feel that they are heard—they feel unseen and unheard—and they don't feel that the regulators are listening to them.In Aotearoa New Zealand there is substantial energy poverty largely because of our poor housing stock and low incomes and that whole area is one which the Green Party with the Warm Up New Zealand policy our ideas towards insulating homes and the massive Government effort that is happening there is helping to address. But as well as the energy poverty issue we've seen major increase in electricity prices. As the review report noted that electricity is not priced as fairly as it could be in Aotearoa. Particularly in the residential sector prices have increased by 48 percent since 2000 and that's faster than almost anywhere else in the OECD even though our prices were starting from a slightly lower base than some countries.It is for this reason that we really need this consumer advocacy organisation that the bill is establishing so that we get for the first time—because it's certainly something that the National Government didn't do when they were in office—a strong champion for the small-business sector and for residential consumers. Our current electricity sector is dominated by the big players who act often in their interests and with a profit motive and don't give enough attention to the impact of their decisions on residential households and small businesses. So that's something that we strongly support—this agency—for small businesses and household consumers.We also really support—though the previous National speaker Melissa Lee didn't—the ability of the Minister to amend the electricity industry code to ensure that changes are made in the interests of households and small businesses if the sector isn't doing enough. The Minister is accountable to Parliament and to the public so it's entirely appropriate that the Minister should have that power rather than what National wants which is laissez-faire hands off not getting involved and just letting households have to cope with increasing prices.We want more flexibility—and the bill does provide it—around new technology because one of the things that we've awfully slow to do in Aotearoa New Zealand is enable the opportunities for distributor generation and also to encourage more households to take up solar panels. There are huge new subdivisions around Ōtautahi Christchurch with very few solar panels being installed on those homes partly because again past Governments did not focus on changing the building standards to actually make that a whole lot easier. So these changes in this bill which will provide more flexibility around new technologies are really welcome. We still think though there could be much more fundamental changes in the electricity market forcing gen-tailers" to sell a proportion of the electricity that they generate on the open market rather than just trading it internally within their retail arms and there could be more transparency too forcing the "gen-tailers" to release information about those internal transfers.The bill is welcome in terms of as far as it goes but we do need as well a proper strategy to deliver what is best for our climate in terms of the way the energy sector operates and the way the electricity sector operates so that we have that really good transition to renewables. There are actions in the emissions reduction plan but that strategic look is something that we need as well. That transition to renewables—the National Party speakers previously have highlighted the continued use of coal at Huntly. That is happening because under National there wasn't that transition put in place and there wasn't the focus. So we need that strategy; we need that transition.The bill is a good one. It makes welcome improvements and it is based on quite a comprehensive review which made a number of the recommendations which then went through into the legislation. Kia ora."