Scott AlastairALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you Madam Chair for this opportunity. It's interesting the previous speaker Megan Woods didn't talk about the banning of gas exploration as part of the infrastructure debate that we're having this afternoon because we had a number of electricity sector players come into the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. One of them was Genesis. Genesis burns coal. Coal—dirtier than the gas that the Minister has banned but she hasn't banned coal or the use of coal. And I'm not advocating for that. It's a very good reason that she hasn't banned it: because coal is very useful. It's very cheap. It actually plays a very important role in our electricity system. It keeps the lights on though it only produces about 2 percent of the electricity across the country. But unfortunately the facts are that in the next 30 years demand for electricity will double and now we've had a lot of investment in Transpower—that's the business that we reviewed that transports essentially the electricity from the South Island to the North Island. We've had a large investment over a number of years under the previous Government which enables that electricity to flow.But the Minister did not address the fact that demand will double and although we can talk about wind farms they're not as reliable as hydro and they're not as reliable as gas. By banning the gas we're only moving the burden of emissions away from the sector as a whole and we'll be forced to burn more coal because the lights have to stay on somewhere. Of course the gas that would've been exported to replace someone else's coal is no longer able to be exported. So unfortunately an ideological view a stand made by the Government which is going to end up creating more emissions across the planet and not less.Then of course as I say the demand will double in the next few years. Again there needs to be some stronger thinking some more forward thinking about where that supply of electricity is going to come from. We know it's very difficult to get new consents for hydro for example. We know it's difficult to use those lakes to a greater degree. We could have for example much lower minimum levels to make greater utilisation of the water available but we know that's going to be difficult. We heard in the committee that is going to be difficult to achieve as well. We also know that wind farms though sustainable and renewable are not the favourite form of visual pollution that some communities will put up with.So there are issues around the long-term supply but I must say over the last 20 years since I have been involved in the electricity sector from when the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand split up—I was an employee of the first Meridian Energy—the marketplace has developed hugely. The products have become much more sophisticated. The retail market is very efficient and effective and competitive and the customer the consumer is getting good value for money because of that. Of course we've got all sorts of technologies on the demand side of electricity that we've seen as well. So as the spot price rises people can automatically turn themselves off and enable them to save money and reduce costs because of the high electricity price. So inevitably we will see higher prices and the challenge for the Government is to think more about that.I just wanted to touch briefly about the safety point of view on the roads that the Minister mentioned. Well he talks about road safety but he doesn't advocate or support a drug-driving regime. Despite the increased number of deaths on our roads relating to drugs—and it's topical at the moment—road safety has been ignored by that Minister because he doesn't want to make sure that drug-drivers are off the roads.I've only got a few seconds to talk about the criteria for the Provincial Growth Fund. Well who the hell knows what it is? How do we get funds from the Provincial Growth Fund? Everyone with their hand out seems to think they're going to get it and it's some sort of unlimited amount of money. There's no accountability. I mean how do you determine if a roundabout should be built in Northland or Masterton? Do we have to go to the Minister? No accountability—a waste of taxpayers' money.