Swarbrick lives in an apartment in Auckland that has an induction cooktop and electric water heating and, because it’s a new build, she says the electricity bills are reasonably cheap at around $150 per month.

She doesn’t own a car and regularly travels by electric bus (around 25% of Auckland’s fleet is now electric, which means it’s not feeling as much of an effect from the massive diesel price rises as other fleets that haven’t started electrifying).

She spends a lot of time in Wellington and would love to jump on a train, but that’s not an option because of what she says is underinvestment in the rail network.

Energy has been a major focus in politics for a while now after the LNG import terminal announcement, and it’s remained in the news after hostilities in the Middle East sent oil prices skyrocketing and drew more attention to our reliance on imported oil.

New Zealand gets around 75% of its total energy from oil and, as Mike Casey says, that comes with a lot of unnecessary emissions and cost (collectively, we spend around $55 million a day on fossil fuels and much more now that prices have gone up so much).

So how do we run more of our economy with New Zealand-made energy?

“How cool would that be?”

With its alternative emissions reduction plan and Green Budget, “people can see the seeds of the election policy”, but there will be a clear focus on “publicly owned electricity and energy infrastructure, which is made up of diversified renewable energy inputs”.

She says the Government’s “really unfortunate” decision to start importing LNG and increase household costs means we’re increasing our reliance on foreign fuels at a time when we should be going in the other direction and there are many other ways that billion dollars (probably much more) could be better spent.

One of the big shifts for those in the environmental movement is that reducing emissions doesn’t need to be seen as a cost anymore because renewable energy is on the ascendancy and many processes and machines can be electrified. Running off local electrons is also good for the economy and energy security and, as our Investing in Tomorrow research showed, just focusing on our homes and cars could save the country $29 million a day.

“Awesome for the climate. Awesome for cleaner air, particularly if we’re talking about getting vehicles off petrol and diesel. But also really good for people’s pockets. Ultimately, it’s about a more resilient country where we’re producing this stuff ourselves and have genuine energy sovereignty and we’re not reliant on supply chains that can be disrupted by egotistical billionaires or other climate shocks.”

See all the videos from the series here

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