Coffey TamatiEconomic Development and Infrastructure SectorTAMATI COFFEY (Deputy Chairperson of the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee) on behalf of the Chairperson of the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee: Thank you very much Madam Chair. I'm very pleased to stand in place of our chairperson Jonathan Young to talk about the Estimates—the appropriations for Vote Business Science and Innovation which fund a very large and a very diverse range of activities. In total the appropriations sought in this vote amount to $3.852 billion.There are 10 Ministers responsible for appropriations within the vote and we held meetings in select committee with a number of those Ministers to talk about their main appropriations. They include commerce and consumer affairs; communications; economic development; energy and resources; infrastructure and regional economic development; research science and innovation; and also tourism. In my short contribution I'm going to cover some of the appropriations and the issues that we discussed with those relevant Ministers.First up: commerce and consumer affairs appropriations. We discussed with the Minister in our select committee everything from cryptocurrency to wheel clamping to predatory lending. What we found was that actually a large amount of that fund is appropriated for the regulatory business environment that's carried out by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment or MBIE and also the work of the Commerce Commission and the Financial Markets Authority. We heard from the Minister the Hon Kris Faafoi who is responsible for the appropriations.One of the things—the many things—that we talked about in that select committee meeting was about predatory lending. The Credit Contracts Legislation Amendment Bill is currently being considered by the House and it looks at strengthening requirements to lend responsibly to limit the amount of interest and fees on high-cost loans and also to propose some changes in relation to truck shops including putting in place a fit and proper person test for those people that choose to partake in that kind of activity. That work is ongoing but we had a good conversation around the whole idea of loan sharks and predatory lending.Minister Faafoi is also the Minister for communications and we spoke with him in his role as the Minister of Broadcasting Communications and Digital Media which in this vote was responsible for around $41 million in communications appropriations under this Budget 2019. The Minister told us about the work that he's leading to improve connectivity for very rural and remote parts of New Zealand. He reported that by the time these projects are complete 99.8 percent of New Zealanders will have access to high-speed broadband. This leaves only around 4500 of the most remote households around New Zealand without that same kind of access to high-speed broadband.Also we spoke to—just trying to cover off as much as I can in the next minute and a half—economic development: the appropriations under that. The Hon David Parker came and presented on his appropriation which totalled $595 million. A lot of that was obviously to fund advice and services designed to promote economic development throughout the country as a whole through using firms sectors and regions as well.We talked a bit about procurement and about the new Government procurement rules which focus on access for New Zealand businesses construction sector skills and training employment standards and health and safety and also reducing emissions and waste. The rules come into force in October 2019 but we were pleased to hear that agencies that could carry out that work sooner were being encouraged to. When it comes to energy and resources the appropriation totalled $182 million and most of that appropriation was to fund the work of the Electricity Authority and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority otherwise known as EECA. We talked generally about low-emission vehicles and about the contestable fund that's been set up—up to $7 million a year—which supports projects that accelerate the uptake of electric and low-emission vehicles. We asked how the fund was tracking towards its goals and the Minister said that it was making good progress with about 12000 new electric vehicle registrations up from 8700 in December 2018.I think my time is up.