Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. This is a bill that is a solution looking for a problem. It's typical of socialist left-wing Governments to come up with this sort of thing where their answer to a challenge that they perceive to be real and prescient is to set up a committee—set up a committee palm it off to a group of people who will be appointed probably on the basis of their political backgrounds rather than their ability and generate daily sitting fees and the like and produce reports. And nothing will change—nothing will change. So this is something that's become a hallmark of this socialist Labour Government is to set up working groups committees. That creates the sense of something happening. It creates a sense of momentum. But in practical real terms nothing happens because the delivery is non-existent.Now this bill seeks to establish a Small Electricity Consumers Agency and that's the grand gesture and—and it's the and" bit that's important—empowers the Minister to amend the electricity industry participation code. That's the bit that is the scary part because you have on the one hand the grand gesture which is to set up the warm fuzzy sounding Small Electricity Consumers Agency which on the surface and on the face of it sounds very reasonable. But actually it's the empowering the Minister to amend the Electricity Industry Participation Code that is the teeth within this piece of legislation. So it's smoke and mirrors over here and don't look too closely at the Minister and the Government overreaching in terms of their power and control and ability to meddle and put their fingers into the marketplace and meddle in a way that they see fit. It's as I say characteristic of a Government that likes to meddle on this kind of grand scale.I'm a driver of an electric vehicle (EV) and I have been for three years. I've nearly done 100000 kilometres in my 100 percent electric vehicle and I love it. One of the things that has occurred since I started driving an electric vehicle is that it's changed my relationship and understanding of electricity as a consumer. I have found that whereas for years and years and years and particularly during the years when my children were teenagers and they're going through that period of time when they seemed to use a lot more electricity than anybody else in the universe I would just pay the power bill each month. I'd occasionally give them stern lectures about the necessity to turn off lights and unnecessary heaters and don't have such long showers. But as I say that's a teenage thing and they sort of grow out of that. They grow out of it enough when they start paying the power bills themselves when they become consumers themselves. I've noticed this and I speak from my lived experience of this. They do get it eventually.But I have found that my relationship with electricity has changed since I became an EV driver and I've gone to the extent of having solar installed on my roof. I can sit in this Chamber sometimes and put on the app on my phone and see how much electricity is being generated in the beautiful Coromandel as I sit in this Chamber. What that tells me and what that little journey of electricity exploration has taught me is that actually there is much that could be done to make consumers more electricity-focused and understanding.Now some of that is not about setting up an agency of the sort that is proposed in this bill. Some of it is about making it easier for consumers to have a better understanding of what their electricity use is how they can reduce their electricity consumption how they can be more efficient and how they can achieve a faster move to the electrification of our economy that's going to be needed as we transition to a climate-focused world where we remove ourselves from fossil fuels. The answer to this piece of legislation is actually not to create a grand gesture Government Labour Party type of new agency or committee or organisation. The answer is actually to just allow consumers to be more flexible more useful and to make it easier for people as individuals to understand what their electric electricity usage is happening."