Bridges Simon: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBridges Simon: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 17 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1602. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): It has been a terrific summer with great weather barbecues and breaks for many New Zealanders I am sure. But sadly slowly we have all had to come back to normality—to work to picking up our children from school with their empty lunchboxes. It is good actually to see New Zealand First come along with their lunchboxes replete with the Australian flag on them. But we are back to normality in this House as well because the Government is focused resolutely on getting on with the job and with what matters to New Zealanders.Of course the Opposition is focused on pretty much everything else. It is focused on MPs who are no longer MPs and on a convention centre that taxpayers actually do not have to pay for. I will give Phil Twyford credit for something. He actually unlike his colleagues in the Labour Party asked a policy question today. I accept he did struggle to keep up with Bill English in terms of the answers that were given but he asked a policy question. We did not see that from the other members in his party. [Interruption] Well it is hard to know frankly.This is a party that believes that New Zealand has so much to be optimistic about over the next 3 years. We have got a top Prime Minister commonly recognised as such around the world. We have got an economy that is going very well—we acknowledge it can go better—where jobs are up inflation is down growth is up unemployment is down incomes are up interest rates are low and New Zealanders are feeling the benefits of that. We see it—Mr Clayton Mitchell knows—in Tauranga with construction booming with residential properties booming with the kiwifruit industry back on its feet doing well and with that flowing through into the car yards to the publicans and to everyone in the Bay of Plenty economy. That is a fantastic thing to see.What I am being told at the barbecues is that yes we are doing well this is going very well in an uncertain world and there is more that the country wants to see and they are going to get that from us. It is very interesting being overseas. I was briefly talking last night with someone from Britain. There was a sense really of envy at how things are going in this country the good governance that people are getting from the top in this country—and really can I say envy whether they are Australians Brits or wherever they are from—about a Prime Minister and a Cabinet and a caucus entirely united behind and focused on what matters to New Zealanders and getting on. We know quite clearly that this is a Government that over the last 6 years—and we will continue to see it—has been focusing on the finances not on the petty stuff. It is focusing on a productive and competitive economy and better public services and continuing to work hard on rebuilding Canterbury.But we are not resting on our laurels. There is plenty more to come and I see that in the very ambitious work programmes that I am privileged to be involved in through the Business Growth Agenda and through the terrific portfolios that I have taken over in very good shape from other Ministers in energy and transport where we are seeing great infrastructure investment in this country. It is really unprecedented actually. More than that in energy and transport we are working very much to enhance the lives and the lifestyles that New Zealanders can lead in this country through the travel and the options that they have and through the lifestyles that they have in this country. It is allowing us to take action on climate change to do things in that area and to capture the real benefits of huge technological advancement. I know that my friends in the Green Party find technology advancements difficult to deal with. They would rather that we did not have to talk about those things but we are positioning New Zealand at the front of those things capturing the benefits of the best advancements around the world for this country.In energy I am really proud that we continue to focus with success on the development of petroleum and minerals because we do have great potential in this country. We are under-explored. I accept actually and very much think about the need to transition to a lower-carbon economy but what we know without any doubt is that that cannot happen overnight that the world will continue to need petroleum for the foreseeable future and that not all fossil fuels—I know it is a hard one to get your head around Ms Genter but not all fossil fuels are equal. Gas and oil have a beneficial role to play in helping displace coal in this world of ours particularly in Asia and Africa where there is not enough energy to meet people’s energy needs.Minerals—abundant resources in this country. Tough times at the moment with low commodity prices but it is cyclical and we know again that contrary to what our colleagues the Green Party in this Parliament think the smart clean green economy that Russel Norman talks about requires minerals. Whether it is in technology whether it is in information and communications technology whether it is in wind turbines whether it is photovoltaic—all of those technologies require minerals and this Government understands and accepts that reality.In this Government we are taking every opportunity to promote New Zealand’s renewable advantage which is a fantastic advantage that we have in this country and the expertise that we have internationally and that is going to be a real focus in these 3 years. We saw in Contact Energy’s announcement yesterday on its profits that as competition really has heated up here it will look overseas look to the ring of fire countries and export some of the expertise we have to uplift growth in this country. At the moment 81 percent of our electricity system comes from renewables in this country—which is something I think most New Zealanders perhaps would not appreciate or understand; it is surprising when you hear it—compared with 10 or 11 percent in Australia the United Kingdom and many other countries that we compare ourselves to. We have huge experience in geothermal and wind and smart grids. There is a real ability to leverage that overseas and I want to see more of that over this term.I want to ensure competitive pressure on the energy prices. We are already seeing that. Last year there was the biggest lot of new entrants into the retail space in electricity for a very long time with seven new players in that area. I want to support innovation in energy productivity and efficiency whether it is the  the Smart Grid Forum that we have already set up electric vehicles and the like. So although we will be certainly continuing to take a balanced approach where we understand the desirability and the need this world has for petroleum and minerals we will also very much be focusing as well on the real opportunities to lower our emissions in this country in electric vehicles renewables and biofuels.Transport is a fantastic portfolio where we are really going to focus on results for this country. We have spent a huge amount of money and New Zealanders and Aucklanders indeed are going to see the benefits of that. We will really be focusing on public transport. [Interruption] It winds them up. It winds the Opposition up. This Government has spent $2 billion on metropolitan rail in this country. Cycleways—very significant expenditure seeing cycleways in all the major cities of this country. There is a focus on Auckland which we need to be a success. We know it has transport issues and I am committed to working constructively with Auckland for an affordable effective transport system. To repeat again there are big technological advancements overseas that are revolutionising transport. We want to capture those benefits for New Zealand whether it is in electric vehicles whether it is in connected vehicles and the like and supporting an export economy.We are back to normality after a long summer where I accept some of the Opposition members will be feeling a little bit grumpy. But I say to members opposite: stop focusing on the trivia in 2014 because this is a Government that is not going to let its guard down and that is focusing on the things that matter for this country. We are not seat-warming; we have an active and a significant agenda to really enhance New Zealanders’ lives and lifestyles over the next 3 years.