Wellington Regional Council (Water Board Functions) Bill

I move, That the Wellington Regional Council (Water Board Functions) Bill be now read a third time. I thank the House for its consideration of this local bill. The bill adds a third purpose to the two previously legislated purposes of land held under the Wellington Regional Water Board Act. The original two purposes related to the bulk collection of water from that land catchment and to forestry. They were the only two purposes for which the land could be used. This bill adds a third: the production of renewable energy—in all likelihood, wind energy. The Wellington Regional Council does not see that such a purpose would threaten the quality of the water collected. With the enactment of this bill the council will be free to utilise the lands vested in it, and to contribute to the region’s energy security and the nation’s sustainability and climate change goals. The council is investigating a small number of sites to determine their feasibility for wind generation. The purpose of the council’s study is to determine whether those sites are feasible from an economic, environmental, and social perspective.

Changes to the bill make it clear that the bill provides for the construction of electrical installations and works for renewable energy. Also, changes have been made to the bill so that it is to be read subject to any other enactment, thereby ensuring that the protections that exist in other legislation, such as in the Resource Management Act and the Local Government Act 2002, continue to apply in respect of the council’s lands. In other words, the community will be able to have its say if wind energy developments go ahead.

During the debate on this bill, the issue was brought up that maybe this bill was a sneaky way, through Parliament, of making a rates charge. That is not so.

💬 Darren Hughes: It was only silly old Roger Sowry.

Yes, but the bill is very clear that a third party can build, operate, and maintain a renewable energy facility; it does not state that the council must build, operate, and maintain such a facility itself. Accordingly, it leaves those choices open to the council.

This is a useful bill for the region as a whole and for the council, which supports the changes made during the legislative process. I make the comment that the more we can spend, raise, and generate energy closer to the cities concerned, the fewer the transmission issues we will have to follow. I thank the Local Government and Environment Committee once again for its consideration of this bill, which I commend to this House.

Mr Speaker—and I must say that it is refreshing to be able to say “Mr Speaker”—National supports the Wellington Regional Council (Water Board Functions) Bill, but we do have one or two reservations around it.

It is a local bill. It directly affects only the Wellington Regional Council area, and applies only to the land held under the Wellington Regional Water Board Act. The Wellington Regional Council is responsible for the supply of bulk water to the territorial authorities within the Wellington water region. The council is also empowered to establish forests and to carry out forestry operations. For those purposes, certain lands were vested in or under the control of the council as water collection or forestry areas, and the purpose of this bill is to allow the council to enter into renewable energy activities on those lands.

This bill was passed to the Local Government and Environment Committee on 14 May 2003, so it is interesting to see that this small bill has taken so long to come to this stage.

💬 Darren Hughes: That’s very interesting.

It is a fascinating piece of information for Mr Hughes, and I am sure that he is paying rapt attention.

Although National supports this bill we have some concerns about the extraordinary contradictions of this Government, in that it is allowing renewable energy activities on land belonging to the Wellington Regional Council but it could not support a chorus of local government support for the Dobson dam in the northern area of the South Island. It is an extraordinary contradiction, given the overwhelming support for that Dobson dam. Without exception, everybody supported that proposal.

This Wellington Regional Council bill supports renewable energy activities on land that is also considered to have some significant conservation value. Although this bill prescribes that that land is to be used for renewable energy activity, there was no move on the part of the Government to accord the same advantage to those authorities connected with the Dobson dam issue. That still rankles with many people in that area, and will continue to do so, because there was absolutely no reason why that particular project could not go ahead.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Before the dinner break the House was debating the Wellington Regional Council (Water Board Functions) Bill. Sandra Goudie was speaking and she has 7 minutes remaining if she so wishes.

I am not Sandra Goudie, but I am happy to take up the remaining 7 minutes of her call. The speech she was making was very important, and I want to draw the attention of the House to the absolute risk that will be associated with the Wellington Regional Council—

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I apologise for interrupting the member, but my understanding of the Standing Orders is that if a member is not here to take the call, then a new call is granted and that member has a full 10 minutes. I am not aware that a member can have the 7 remaining minutes of another member’s speech.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. The member can transfer the call to another member of his or her party. That is quite correct.

I was not going to speak for 10 minutes, so I thank Mr Shirley for the opportunity to allow me to speak for 10 minutes—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member has 7 minutes.

I will just take the remaining 7 minutes. I want to make the point very clearly that this Wellington Regional Council (Water Board Functions) Bill will put at risk the community in which that local authority operates. What we will see is a move under the powers of general competence, which came in under the Local Government Act of 2002, to put the onus on the ratepayers of this area if the council moves into a commercial venture, and the venture goes belly-up. Who will carry the can? It will be the ratepayers of this area, be they those on fixed incomes, superannuitants, or others. So who will pay if anything goes wrong?

We said, during the Committee stage of this bill, and I mentioned it when I spoke in the second reading debate, that that was a major concern we had. The bill allows, of course, for the regional council to move into the energy field and, in particular, into the field of renewable energy sources. Energy and roading have been identified many times as the major infrastructural challenges facing New Zealand. So we have an issue and a challenge with energy, but we must also realise that the costs to be incurred could be very, very severe indeed if something were to go wrong.

I want to spend my time looking specifically at wind-power generation and wind turbines. Members will know that those turbines are a blight on the landscape, if they have seen them. If they have been through the United States and have seen the wind farms there, as I have, they will know that they can be quite an eyesore. We have the challenge in the Waikato area of Transpower wanting to put pylons through our region that are up to 70 metres high, which will also be a blight on the landscape. However, in terms of wind turbines, I believe that their towers will also be quite an eyesore.

The efficiency of wind farms is not as great as many people might expect. In fact, they can operate only when the wind blows between 5 kilometres and 25 kilometres an hour. They are very expensive to operate, they have huge maintenance costs, they are noisy, and they are an eyesore. I have seen them in operation. I was in Australia in November looking at a wind operation there, and I learnt that they are hugely expensive to operate. So at best they can be only complementary to the other sources of energy we normally have, be they geothermal, hydro—of which we have an abundance—or coal. I am not going to go into those sources in particular, but I want to draw the House’s attention to an article that appeared in the Dominion Post today, headed up: “Generation fluctuations put strain on national grid”.

I want to quote from that article, because it sends out some challenges in relation to wind generation: “Wind-generated power is putting more pressure on New Zealand’s already strained national grid. A study by State-owned national grid company Transpower shows that fluctuations in the amount of power generated by big Manawatu windfarms affect the loading of transmission circuits. With Meridian Energy’s Te Apiti windfarm and TrustPower’s Tararua farm both now working, Transpower found that 100 megawatt (MW) increases in generation from rising winds could occur in any one five-minute trading period, potentially causing imbalances in the system and affecting the quality of power received by consumers. Building more windfarms”—and this is a point to bear in mind in relation to what Wellington Regional Council might want to do—“along the Tararua Range, as planned, could double output and lead to 200MW surges in a five-minute period, the report said.”

The article continued: “There were also questions about the impact of clustering windfarms in one area and whether spreading them more widely might ease pressure on the grid.” Research is being been undertaken by MetService and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. They “were being asked to analyse winds across the Tararuas to find out how similar conditions were at the two windfarms. The report said wind peaks at the same time would maximise generation output in a five-minute trading period, and other windfarm developments were ‘likely [to] exacerbate operational and market impacts currently observed.’ ”

The report continued: “ ‘We’re concerned that more windfarms could cause quality problems, both in getting electricity to people and the quality they receive out of the wall,’ …The report also said the accuracy of forecasting generation output from the Te Apiti and Tararua windfarms was poor.” That is what it said—that it was poor. The efficiency of wind farms is not as great as people expect. They are only 40 percent efficient, and many turbines are needed in order to generate the megawatts required. In our area we have at Huntly Genesis Power’s 1000-megawatt power station, but we would need many turbines to compensate for what we could get out of coal or thermal generation.

So we say that although we support this legislation we certainly want to bring to the attention of those in the Wellington region that if the Wellington Regional Council moves into a commercial arena with wind generation, or with any other energy generation—the bill actually says the council can look at renewable energy resources, which mean solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass, tidal-wave, and ocean-current sources—then there is a risk. National supports the bill, but I draw to the public’s attention that there is a huge risk associated with that sort of commercial development by a territorial local authority.

New Zealand First supports the third reading of this Wellington Regional Council (Water Board Functions) Bill. On behalf of my colleague Jim Peters, who sits on the Local Government and Environment Committee—

💬 Government Member: Who?

Not the Rt Hon Winston Peters; we know who he is—I will go over some key points that he pointed out. Firstly, the bill allows for reserved land that had been set aside for water and forestry to be used for energy generation—namely, wind power. We just heard from Lindsay Tisch with regard to wind-powered windmills. Of course, where I come from in the Wairarapa they are seen on the ranges between the Manawatū and Woodville. Mr Tisch brought up some points with regard to their noise. I have not actually heard them, but I have seen them generating power. Just recently in the paper there were reports of some that had blown down—in the country, I think—and a point can be made that there is a danger of windmills causing harm.

The second point Jim Peters brought up was that New Zealand First has had no objections to this bill in its progression through the House, but we had an issue with the fact that the bill does not allow any developments to take place without a replication of the Resource Management Act and the normal consent process.

Thirdly, the stated intention of the Wellington Regional Council to provide for wind power is one that New Zealand First believes should be carried out by another agency or entity. We have to ask ourselves whether the regional council should be involved in generating power, even though it is allowed to get a third party involved. The issue is whether the future of energy developments is to be one whereby individuals and councils independently set up developments or whether the Government has some overall, embracing energy plan that will enable individuals, entities, and others to be part of the energy framework for New Zealand’s future. As we all know, there is a problem with generating power—we have experienced that in the last 5 or 6 years—so there is a future for developments in power generation. But should regional councils be involved in the commercial side of that activity? As Lindsay Tisch said on behalf of National, the brunt of some of the costs will be borne by ratepayers.

In summary, New Zealand First supports the bill, wishes the Wellington Regional Council well in its endeavours, and looks forward to ratepayers and citizens having full participation. That is important. Consultation with, and participation by, all those involved should be at the forefront of this proposal to generate power. New Zealand First hopes that the Government will address our energy issues within a planned national framework.

I finish with reference to one point in the commentary: “Council may authorise third-party use of the land for renewable energy …”. I have touched on that in the points I have just made. I think it is important, because the cost of generating power is colossal. The council told the committee that because of the high capital cost of developing sites for renewable energy generation, it may wish to enter into such arrangements with the electricity industry. Jim Peters’ experience in these issues would have been most helpful to the select committee.

The ACT party will also be supporting this bill, but we join with other parties in expressing some concern about activities the local authority could potentially engage in that we believe would be inappropriate. As far as this legislation goes, all it does is recognise that those lands vested in the Wellington Regional Water Board—which was formed in 1972 and incorporated into the Wellington Regional Council in 1980—that were especially designated for water catchment purposes and forestry operations may have an expanded land use. We have no objection to that in principle. We believe in multiple land use, according to appropriate usage. Obviously the local authority in question has the keenest interest of all to ensure that the catchments that are used for harvesting water are maintained in a pristine condition. The principal water catchment areas are in the southern Tararuas, above Kaitoke and the Hutt River, and also in the Ōrongorongo Valley. Those two prime sources, integrated with the artesian water of the lower Hutt Valley, form the bulk water supply for the Wellington region.

Much of the land that is vested in the Wellington Regional Water Board is not part of a water catchment at all. The Whakatiki catchment, which extends from Upper Hutt to the backdrop of Paraparaumu and Paekākāriki, is an extensive forestry area. Indeed, it is a commercial activity. The Wellington Regional Water Board has a substantial forestry operation. As a schoolboy many, many years ago I worked for its forestry department, and subsequently I was a water scientist there in the early 1970s, after the regional water board was formed, so I know the catchments particularly well.

The issue here is that the council now wants to expand the purposes for which that land can be used, to allow for what is termed “the generation of sustainable energy”. In this instance, that specifically refers to windmills. I see no objection to that at all, to the extent that those lands may lend themselves as suitable sites for wind generation. Unlike Mr Tisch, I do not object to wind generation; I think it is part of the mix. What I do object to is the undue emphasis some are placing on the role that wind generation can play. If we quadrupled our existing wind generation it would still meet only less than 4 percent of our power generation needs. That is not to say that it does not have an important role to play, and possibly an increasing role to play. But, like other forms of generation, it is not without problems, and Mr Tisch outlined some of those.

Wind generation is very intermittent. With water generation we can have some reasonable expectation as to when it might be dry; it is predictable. But wind generation is both variable and unpredictable, and that certainly causes problems in electricity transmission and supply. It can lead to sudden pulses through the system. Thermal back-up is needed to support that sort of generation. So wind generation is part of the mix but it is not a total answer. That is why I take exception to some of the language and some of the notions in the explanatory note of the bill, which states: “In the interests of sustainable development, the Council wishes to be empowered to use lands vested in it or under its control … for the production of renewable energy.”

We still have not managed to define what “sustainable development” actually means. It has been in the Resource Management Act since 1991, but experts in the field still do not know what it actually means. It is just a matter of meaningless mantras. To be repeating those mantras in this sort of legislation—pretending that somehow it is all wonderful because we used the right combination of words—is very foolish indeed. The principle here is what land uses should be permitted. The ACT party says that there should be multiple land use. No one has a stronger interest than the owners of the land in determining what is appropriate, what is compatible with other uses, and whether one use conflicts with others.

Of course, the Resource Management Act should be determining land uses. Part of any consideration under the Resource Management Act is to weigh up impacts on other uses, so we could call into question the very need for this legislation. It is really just relaxing a constraint that was imposed at the time when this land was designated and entrusted to the regional water board, and subsequently to the Wellington Regional Council. ACT has no objection to the legislation as it stands, but I just point out that it is possibly unnecessary and that there may have been better ways to go about it than pretending that we are wrapping it up in some wonderful new concept, which in fact we are not doing.

The other point I would like to make is that this legislation would empower the council to engage in the business of power generation. I think that would be a retrograde step. I do not believe that it is the core business of an elected public body. It may certainly make the lands available for power generation. It may enter into a commercial relationship with a private sector entity. But I certainly do not want to see local bodies, under their newly given powers of general competence, getting back into power generation, transmission, and possibly supply. I believe that that would be a very retrograde step, and there is a danger of it occurring under this bill.

The ACT party will be supporting the bill, but we have some concerns about potential effects that we hope will not come to pass.

The Greens have to applaud any opportunity to put New Zealand on a more sustainable energy basis.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: A modest one.

It is a modest one, but the idea of “Absolutely Positively Windy Wellington” having trolleybuses and trains powered by wind has a certain panache, so we approve of that.

The Local Government and Environment Committee has made a number of important changes. It specifies renewable energy. I am sure that that is what the council had in mind anyway, and of course Wellington has plenty of wind to produce that renewable energy. As my colleague Ken Shirley said, it is part of the mix. It is probably a very small part of the mix. It is interesting to follow Ken Shirley, because in an earlier life we worked for the same outfit—a catchment board in Nelson. So he knows about water catchments and what happens in those places. We never contemplated these issues in those days.

Any plans to capitalise on this bill would have to be notified and the public given the right to be heard. Could such a notification lead to refusal? I suppose it could. But what is more likely to happen is that it will lead to conditions being put in place to make sure that historic, ecological, landscape, and recreational values are preserved. Every level of Government has a responsibility to look after the environment, and none more so than regional councils, which often take on names like Environment Waikato. That is upfront. As a consequence they normally do not have commercial enterprises, or not too many of them. They do not tend to be resource users; rather, they are resource managers. That is a very good thing because it means that they are not seen to be both poacher and gamekeeper. But in this case it is probably part of the reasonable efforts of this regional council to care for the environment.

It is to be hoped that the Wellington Regional Council will look to New Zealand’s own industry to build its turbines. Windflow Technology is developing New Zealand - made wind turbines to do the job. It would be nice to think that those turbines might be employed in the water catchments of Wellington to provide power and jobs for the people of New Zealand. The unpredictability of wind complements the hydro-energy system very, very well. Hydro can be turned off and on. There is storage available so that when the wind is not blowing, hydro storage can be drawn on.

The argument that Governments should not be active in commercial enterprises does not hold much water, when one thinks that the hydro-energy network in this country was built by Governments, and built brilliantly by Governments. When one looks at the history of the electricity industry over the last few years, one would say that it has not done particularly well under a deregulated regime. So perhaps this will be a move in the right direction.

This bill is not a blank cheque for any activities. Proposed activities will have to go through the resource management process, and the resource management process requires that there be good plans in place. It would be nice to think that the councils will make sure that their plans recognise those historic, recreational, ecological, and landscape values. Because if they do not then it is not possible to take them into account when resource consents are issued. So it is really important that both the regional council and the Wellington City Council put protections in place in their district plans for those other values.

The Green Party is supporting this bill. It is interesting legislation that opens up some interesting possibilities, including the possibility to make a small contribution to a future of sustainable energy for New Zealand.

United Future is pleased to support the third reading of the Wellington Regional Council (Water Board Functions) Bill. This is quite an important issue for the Wellington region, and for the Hutt Valley in particular, because the proposed use of wind power affects the Hutt Valley hills. That, of course, has consequences for Hutt Valley residents that need to be explored. In that context, I am a little bit surprised at the absence of electorate MPs Trevor Mallard, Paul Swain, and Winnie Laban—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no. The member knows that he cannot refer to the absence of members. The member will withdraw those remarks.

I withdraw the remarks.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The point I was making was not about the presence or absence of members in the Chamber, which is the rule that I understand you are alluding to, but rather it was about the failure of those members to contribute to this debate, at any time. That is a different issue altogether. My understanding is that the Standing Orders do not cover that point.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Saying that members have failed to contribute to this debate and adding “at any time” is just another way of putting it. The member is still alluding to the absence of members in this debate.

I will accept your ruling, Madam Speaker. The Wellington Regional Council has explored three areas in the Hutt Valley for the use of wind resources. It is worth reiterating to this House some of the results that have been achieved—in particular, the discovery of the huge advantage that the Mt Climie area, which is in the Tararua Ranges near Upper Hutt, would provide in terms of wind power. There were three areas that the Wellington Regional Council looked at: Mt Climie, which is east of Upper Hutt in the Rimutaka electorate; the Puketiro site, which is east of Battle Hill Farm Forest Park in Pāuatahanui; and the Belmont hills between Lower Hutt and Porirua.

Of those areas, Mt Climie really stood out—not only by New Zealand standards but by world standards. I quote from the report that was presented to Greater Wellington Regional Council on renewable energy, after the investigations that were made by advisers to explore the likely benefits of those areas. Page 5 of the report states: “From a wind resource perspective, the most outstanding site of the three is undoubtedly Mt Climie. Of the possible 63 turbine locations at Mt Climie, approximately 40 could be subject to a wind resource that will allow a capacity factor of approximately 65%. For 8% of the time, the wind speed is above 90km/h when turbines are normally shut down compared with 1% or less in a more average New Zealand wind generation situation. Harnessing some of this energy will increase the capacity factor. Provisionally, the balance of the turbines could be located on a ridge of slightly lesser elevation than the main ridge, but will still be subject to a very good wind speed. With one megawatt turbines and say an average capacity factor of the whole site of 55%, then the site has a capability of producing 300 gigawatt hours of electricity a year. To put this in perspective, it is sufficient to power about 35,000 homes or one third of those in the Wellington metropolitan area.” Clearly, Mt Climie is a standout site that could be of huge benefit to the Wellington region.

It is notable that the Tararua wind farm, which is generally regarded as being at the top level of international wind farms, has a capacity factor of just under 50 percent, compared with Mt Climie at 64.6 percent. The average wind speed at the Tararua wind farm is 12 metres per second, compared with 15.7 metres per second at Mt Climie. The Tararua wind farm is regarded as one of the best in the world, which shows just how good the Mt Climie site is in comparison, and therefore how valuable the site is, not only to the Wellington region but to the national grid in general.

The importance of that, in terms of the Mt Climie site being able to power a third of the Wellington metropolitan area, cannot be understated, particularly in the environment in which we are looking at our electricity capacity for the future. With the cancellation of hydro schemes, and our coming to the limit of our ability to develop hydro schemes, we are being forced to look at other forms of power generation. This bill, which facilitates the use of land for wind power, is therefore a bill of some importance for the national interest.

There were really two issues that arose during the select committee process—a process of which I was privileged to be part. The first was the use of public-private partnerships for the development of wind farms, so that private enterprises in particular could access sites in order to develop wind farms. The second issue concerned the level of public consultation, and the need for close consultation because of the public interest in this area, particularly with regard to the recreational use of the Belmont area and the Tararua Ranges.

United Future members have always been very keen on the use of public-private partnerships. It was one of the four cornerstone agreements we made with the Government in order to provide confidence and supply—namely, that the use of public-private partnerships for the development of infrastructure would be facilitated, particularly in the area of transport. That, of course, has happened in the term of this Parliament, which is merely one of the things United Future members have achieved—among a list of many things—while we have been here.

In this case, the bill in its initial drafting provided that the development of wind farms would be done by council-controlled organisations, or council-controlled trading organisations. We impressed upon the Government the need to widen that criterion, so that effectively anybody could develop power facilities there. That was done through the amendment to clause 5 of the bill, which effectively enables such functions to be carried out by “another person”, and not to be restricted just to council-controlled organisations. We are very pleased to see that amendment, because we envisage that the development of wind power, given its risky nature and the fact that a lot of technological development is yet to come, is really something that expert companies such as Genesis Power might develop—it has already expressed an interest in the sites—rather than a council body itself might want to embark upon.

In terms of public consultation, there was a bit of a concern that a limitation in the bill stated that the bill did not affect the Resource Management Act. That provision has been extended to state that the bill will not affect any other enactment, either. In that regard, I note that the land covered by the bill is to be managed in accordance with quite a large number of management plans, including the interim Forest Lands Management Plan 1996, the Water Collection Areas Asset Management Plan 2004, the draft Forest Lands Management Plan: Future Water Catchment Areas 2004, the Plantation Forest Working Plan 2000-2010, the Kaitoke Regional Park Management Plan 1991, the Belmont Regional Park Management Plan 1993, the recreation policies for the Hutt and Wainuiōmata catchments as agreed by the council in 1996 and 2003, and the Environmental Asset Management Plan.

The eventuality, therefore, that a wind farm could develop on a site without much public attention is, I think, unlikely to occur in reality. Notwithstanding that, the Local Government and Environment Committee did write to the Wellington Regional Council to ask it to provide a letter of assurance that any development, whether by the council or by a private company, would require resource consent, public consultation, and public advertising, and those assurances were given. So we in United Future are certainly satisfied that, if there is going to be any development of this land for wind farming, then the public will get a full say in the way in which that will occur.

United Future members are very supportive of this bill. We are certainly supportive of the facilitation it provides to the Wellington Regional Council, in the development of this land for purposes that are definitely in the national interest. We will be delighted to see the bill passed.

Bill read a third time.