Curran ClareCLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I sit on the Commerce Committee where this bill will come and I am looking forward to the discussions at the select committee on this but when I first saw the title of this bill and thought Ah what's this about?" I felt a frisson of excitement that—Richard Prosser: A croissant—a breakfast of excitement.CLARE CURRAN: No not a croissant—a frisson. Ha ha! I felt a little bit excited that there was a plan—there was a plan—and that Simon Bridges was finally going to come good. He was going to come good. He talks a big game sometimes and he gets very excited—electric vehicles are probably one of the things that he gets most excited about. I think James Shaw mentioned how many times he had announced this—not exactly this bill but he made the same announcement eight times because I think it was just so exciting. I thought that we were finally going to have a bit of a plan around energy innovation and that the Government is taking this seriously that it is starting to practise what it preaches around curbing emissions and looking at how the energy sector and the transport sector can actually seriously contribute to that. So I have been looking through and I cannot find the plan but maybe when the bill gets to the select committee—because it is essentially a series of small piecemeal measures that when they all add up do not add up to a plan. It is going to be interesting when we get to the select committee as to what policy initiatives lay behind them. That is I think certainly what I will be asking at the select committee. It reminds me of—every time Labour talks about its Future of Work project which has just been announced at the weekend—a 2-year project with nearly half of the Labour caucus involved. It is a very serious joined-up piece of work looking at a major issue. In the next 10 to 15 years 45 percent of jobs that exist now in New Zealand are unlikely to exist. It reminds me of what Simon Bridges does every time the Future of Work gets some traction: he leaps up and starts talking about driverless pizza delivery cars—that that is somehow something to do with the Future of Work. We make the point that we want New Zealanders to be having the ideas and designing the inventions behind new technology and new ideas in New Zealand and not be the receivers of pizza through driverless cars—our Future of Work project is about the people who make those pizzas. It feels to me very much as if there is a "small beer" approach being taken by the Government on all of these sorts of issues and it is very much lip-service. You can imagine Simon Bridges speaking about this at Cabinet and saying: "Oh look let's give it a grand name like energy innovation and make it sound as though it is something much bigger than it actually is." Well there is no plan and that is very disappointing. So that is the first point I want to make. The second point is essentially that listening to my colleague Sue Moroney talk about the tiny targets of Simon Bridges and also listening to the Greens talk particularly Julie Anne Genter about some of the energy innovation to do with transport that is coming out of Norway—and that is just one example—made me go and actually have a look. I have not had much time to do this but actually if you want to talk about a plan for energy innovation related to transport how about this? Norway is working on a whole series of projects and I will give you the names of some of them: Nordic Sustainable Intelligent Truck Hub Nordic Comparison on the Future of Road Freight Energy Efficiency and CO2 Emissions Alcohol (Spirits) and Ethers as Marine Fuel Nordic Sustainable Logistics Network Sustainable Transport through Improved Actor Interfaces Cleaner City Freight Transport Nordic Incentives for Electric Cars—I think that is where the point that she was making was and that is just one project; there is a lot of work happening in Norway on that—Electrifying the Seaways Mapping Electric Fuel Stations Testing the Driving Range of Electrical Vehicles and a project called Nordic Electric Avenue.That sounds like a plan to me. That sounds like a major plan where not only has there been a lot of research that has gone into the different parts of the economy that are impacted but it is about how Norway is using this kind of research and these kinds of innovative projects to build its own IP—that is intellectual property for anyone on the Government side who maybe does not know what I am talking about—that it can then offer to the rest of the world and add value to the rest of the world when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions. But instead we have got this little piecemeal piece of legislation coming before us that takes a few measures and puts them in a framework that it calls energy innovation. Well I am putting the Government on notice: when this legislation gets to the select committee we will be asking questions about what analysis has been done on what value this will add to our economy what the carbon dioxide emissions are that will result from this how this is being measured back to New Zealand's commitment through the Paris Agreement and where it fits in with a wider plan in New Zealand around reducing our emissions and what we have signed up to in terms of that. Instead we have got just a few small things: making changes to the levy funding for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA)—I am not diminishing these things but they are not exactly major strategies around energy innovation—and clarifying how electricity industry legislation applies to secondary networks. If you read the regulatory impact statement that seems to be its major focus as to what the impact will be on secondary networks and how the legislation needs to take care around that. I am not diminishing the importance of that. We have got to get things right in legislation and we have got to do things the right way but it does not sound very groundbreaking or earth-shattering when you are thinking where this is going to fit in a wider energy innovation plan. Of course there is also creating new road-user charge exemptions enabling electric vehicles to be exempted from road-user charges in the same way that light electric vehicles are proposing that EECA is able to access funding through the Petroleum or Engine Fuel Monitoring Levy and the gas levy and again going back to clarifying the application to secondary networks. I am disappointed. I think the Green members are certainly disappointed and I am hoping that they will make a major contribution at the select committee as to how we could be doing it better. I hope that that gets through to the New Zealand public because it is quite frankly embarrassing to be standing in the House this afternoon talking about a bill that is titled Energy Innovation (Electric Vehicles and Other Matters) Amendment Bill when those "Other Matters" could actually be a plan that New Zealand could use to hold its head up high show what an innovative nation it is and actually use this piece of legislation to drive our economy develop intellectual property and new inventions and create new jobs. Instead it is all a bit pathetic. We support this bill but it is a major disappointment."