Hipkins Chris: Electricity (Renewable Preference) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Electricity (Renewable Preference) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I will respond to many of the comments raised by Government members but before I do so I will extend particular thanks to Charles Chauvel my senior colleague who assisted me in the drafting of this Electricity (Renewable Preference) Amendment Bill and in bringing it forward to the House. I also thank Nanaia Mahuta the new Labour energy spokesperson whom I am very much looking forward to working with and David Parker the previous Minister of Energy who I think brought a very coherent focus to the energy and climate change portfolios. 
That coherent focus is something that the current Government is woefully lacking in. There is no coherent focus in the current Government’s approach to dealing with climate change energy and environmental issues. They all go hand in hand yet we have Gerry Brownlee saying that he will release a new New Zealand energy strategy which he has been promising ever since he first became the Minister of Energy and Resources but which we have still seen absolutely no sign of. 
Nick Smith is running around the world with Tim Groser in tow saying that New Zealand is committed to addressing the challenge of climate change yet Gerry Brownlee is back at home going in the opposite direction. He is leaping up and down waving his arms and saying: “Come and drill here. Come and drill here. Come and explore the fossil fuels that we have in New Zealand.” which is in total contradiction to the Government’s purported commitment to addressing the challenges posed by climate change. It is absolutely bizarre that at a time when the whole world is watching and waiting to see what is going on with the BP oil well that is gushing out oil in the Gulf of Mexico Gerry Brownlee is waving his hands furiously in the air trying to encourage people to come and drill exactly those types of holes here in New Zealand—before we even know how to plug them if something goes wrong. 
I will respond specifically to comments raised by National speakers. Jonathan Young in particular said that we needed to build more gas-fired power plants so that we could then encourage more exploration to find more gas to power those power plants. That is absolutely ridiculous. It is a totally circular argument to say that if we want more renewable energy we need to build more gas-fired power plants. That is simply ridiculous. It is simply ridiculous. The argument goes around in circles and it barely needs any further rebuttal than that. 
Nathan Guy clearly demonstrated that he had not actually read the bill because he tried to claim that it would prevent generators from replacing non-renewables with more efficient non-renewables but in fact that is not the case. The bill clearly states that there are exemptions in the bill relating to that. It would not have taken him very long to read the bill through and ascertain that fact. This bill applies to baseload only; it does not restrict more efficient energy contrary to what National members claim. Nathan Guy said that in 2009 we had the highest percentage of renewable energy for some time. That could have something to do with the fact that over the previous 5 years or so the previous Labour Government had done a lot to encourage the uptake of more renewable energy sources. In 2008 the last year that Labour was in Government 426 megawatts of new renewable energy was added and that well outstripped the growth in demand in that year. A lot more renewable energy was brought in under Labour’s watch than was needed to meet the increase in demand. 
National talks about being committed to the 90 percent renewable energy target as being an aspirational goal. Aspiration for National is a bit like one of those things that they say when they do not really want to do something but they know that it is popular and that they still want to have the photo opportunity so that John Key can smile and wave. Those members will just commit to that target as an aspirational target despite the fact that all of their policies and all of the things that they are doing are actually going entirely in the other direction. They will just call it aspirational and therefore that gets them out of actually having to do anything about it. It is a bit like their aspirational goal to catch up with Australia despite the fact that they are already dramatically pushing New Zealand in the other direction. 
The oil and gas exploration companies of course would have expressed their reservations about this legislation when it was first introduced to Parliament in 2008. It did not stop them from continuing on. Of course they are going to talk about something that is against their financial interests. I appreciate that this bill is potentially against their financial interests to some extent but the original bill did not stop them from being in New Zealand. 
This bill is not a complete solution; it is part of an overall picture. It is part of an overall commitment to dealing with the challenges of climate change and to paving a New Zealand energy future that is sustainable and that thinks of future generations. It does not set up a position for future generations whereby they are reliant on energy sources that will run out and leave them with much higher electricity prices than we pay today when they could have an energy future that is based on renewable energy sources. I commend this bill to the House.