Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. An interesting issue arises in connection with Part 2 that I would like to briefly explain to you. The Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill, makes changes to two pieces of legislation. The first is the Resource Management Act and the second is the Electricity Act. Standing Order 259(1) makes it quite clear: “Except as permitted by Standing Orders, a bill must relate to one subject area only.”

We know, and I am sure you know, Mr Chairman, how broad the scope and subject of the Resource Management Act is. When one looks at these provisions under the Electricity Act, and what they do, one sees that they in no sense relate to the subject matters of the Resource Management Act. When one looks at the principal Act, the Electricity Act 1992, and its purpose, one sees it is concerned with the regulation and supply of electricity, with consolidating and amending the law relating to the regulation and control of electrical workers, and with the repeal of the Electric Linemen Act, the Electricity Act 1968, and the Electrical Registration Act. When one looks at the particular changes in this bill, proposing changes to the Electricity Act, one sees that they all centre on the powers and duties of electricity operators and other owners of electrical works. You will see, Mr Chairman, that they are concerned with the construction or maintenance of works on roads and with the rights of entry in respect of level crossings. That is way, way removed from the subject area of resource management.

Although it is true, under Standing Order 259(2), that “A bill may make consequential amendments to a number of Acts…”—and that is an obvious point to acknowledge—a bill must relate to one subject area only. When one looks at Standing Orders 261 and 262, one sees that none of the exceptions referred to apply. I am asking you, Mr Chairman, to take a hard look at what seems to be a clear breach of the Standing Orders.

This bill received its first reading on 14 December 2004. The member referred to Standing Orders 259, 261, and 262, but, helpfully for his own argument, left out Standing Order 260, which states: “The Speaker scrutinises each bill on its introduction to ensure that it complies with Standing Order 259.” By virtue of the bill receiving its first reading on 14 December last year, it had to be introduced into Parliament before that. For the introduction to have been accepted, the Speaker had to verify that it did indeed comply with Standing Order 259. So 8 months later is a little late to raise objections about the content of the bill. It is clearly covered by Standing Order 260.

I am advised also, Mr Chairman, that the very issue of the appropriateness, or not, of the inclusion of these two matters in the bill was determined by the house—I believe, on 1 December—immediately after its tabling, so the House has already made a decision, I understand, on the very matter that has been raised.

Thank you very much for that. Can I just say—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Just keep on cheating.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order. I am ready to rule, but I will hear the Hon Mark Burton.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The member opposite, Nick Smith, cannot make the claim against the Chair that he made.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: It wasn’t against the Chair; it was against the Government.

I am sorry, Mr Chairperson. The member has been here long enough to know the Standing Orders. He directed the words “Keep on cheating.” at the Chair.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: No, at the Government. You know all about it.

Can I just say that members in this place are of long-standing. The member well knows that there are to be no interjections at all during points of order. The member is warned. He has his first yellow card.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am curious—as this is a matter of principle—about the reference to the House having previously made a decision on this. I would be obliged if we could be referred to it, rather than there just being an assertion. I imagine there must some record of it, if the House did, in fact, make that earlier decision.

I just say to members that the House has resolved to allow the bill to proceed, despite Standing Order 259, and the Government gave notice of a motion to gain the House’s authority for the bill to proceed. The House resolved accordingly, and it was done on 1 December 2004. I have the notice here, and the member is quite welcome to look at it here on the Table.

I want to commend my colleague Richard Worth for highlighting the way that this Government will trample all over the Standing Orders.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: But the House did it by majority.

Oh, but the House did it by majority, he says. That is what I mean by cheating. The Government is always cheating on the rules; it is always ahead of the play. That is why I have in front of me a press release from the Minister in the chair, Mr Benson-Pope, stating that we need to consult more with regard to the Resource Management Act and electricity, but he does not apply that to himself. We have Supplementary Order Paper 389 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope, which includes 134 changes on which there has been absolutely no public participation, consultation, or anything. In fact, we received that Supplementary Order Paper only today, and that, Mr Chairman, is a disgrace.

What is even more extraordinary about this Government is that this bill is so radically different from the version introduced by the Minister. The Minister brought a bill to the House and said he had done all his homework, he stood by the bill, and he had got it right, yet very little has survived of the significant proposals that David Benson-Pope introduced in this mashed bill.

The provisions in this part relate to changes to the Electricity Act. We rightly ask why the Government is sneaking through some changes regarding electricity in a resource management bill. Actually, Dr Cullen has let the snake out of the bag. He said that Labour knows it is going down the tubes, and that if it does survive by the skin of its teeth it will be with the Green Party’s support. There is no way the Green Party would ever support these sorts of draconian measures, so Dr Cullen said Labour should bang them through the House–ram them through the House.

💬 Darren Hughes: Ha, ha!

That is what Dr Cullen insinuated at a public meeting that included Business New Zealand. He said Labour had to ram these changes through before they get dished up to—[Interruption] Government members want to talk about everything but that which is in the bill. I understand the reason for that. If I were a Government member in my last few days in Parliament, as Clayton Cosgrove and Darren Hughes are, the last issue that I would want to talk about is the mess that the Government has made in terms of electricity and resource management. I would be so embarrassed that I would be like the rest of their colleagues, who are hiding in the corridors.

The reality is that the Government has made such a complete hash of this area of law that the changes it is making to the Electricity Act are nothing more than a panicked reaction at the last moment before an election. The Government knows that it is in trouble. It knows that from the reports of electricity crises throughout the country. It knows that because it has rejected initiatives like the Dobson River scheme and Project Aqua, and because it has refused over and over again to make changes to the Resource Management Act, this country is lining itself up for a very serious electricity crisis. The Government has nobody but itself to blame for that, and that is one of the many reasons why it will go in 51 days’ time.

I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First in respect of Part 2, which has now substantively become a bill in its own right. I remind the Committee that the Local Government and Environment Committee heard a very interesting submission from New Era Energy. I want to quote the Hon Rob Storey, a former Minister for the Environment, because his comments are in line with our thinking in New Zealand First—and this is talking not just of the original bill but of the revised bill. He said: “As a former Minister for the Environment, I am horrified at the amount of uncheckable and largely unfettered power which is proposed to be given through this law to any Minister who in future holds this portfolio.” He also stated that he was mystified as to why an advocate, which is normally the role of the Minister for the Environment, could in future be forced into a situation under this bill where “the environmental interest may be secondary to short-term commercial gains”.

If that statement was to stand alone, one would think that that was a matter of opinion. But today we read that, at long last—although it has widely been known in the wider world—this Government is planning a series of new national standards, particularly in regard to electricity and telecommunications infrastructure, and that these when they come on line, particularly national policy on contentious topics such as electricity generation, should help to set a standard for construction and operation. One must regard the late addition of this section of the bill as being one for justifiable suspicion, because that is the way it would seem.

One of the issues about this bill—and on behalf of New Zealand First I want to express this very strongly—in regard to policy statements and national standards is the uncertainty and the mixed message that the Government has been sending throughout its time. What happens is that Government members have probably gone off to a conference, been clapped on the back and cheered by the party leaders there—

💬 Dr Richard Worth: Go drinking!

They probably go drinking, as well, in the after hours, then make an unfettered promise that they would fix it. Then they come back here and suddenly realise that the reality may be something different. So we have a whole series of uncertain opinions culminating in the bill that is before us. There can be no other explanation for this very late change. Those of us who heard the submissions were particularly interested to see that the small but interesting section was put right, particularly in regard to where works could be carried out above the ground, or at which height.

New Zealand First still has reservations about what national standards and policy statements under this Government would mean, particularly with regard to their gestation and the lack of community input throughout the whole process.

National members have criticised the Labour Government for not doing enough to ensure we get more big power stations, more big pylons, and more big roads. They need not be concerned. This whole legislation, and everything that flows from it, is about forcing big infrastructure projects on to unwilling communities. In Part 2, those two clauses about works crossing roads—extending it from 110 to 400 kilovolts—are just a detail of the Electricity Act. The real meat of it is in Part 1, which we have discussed before.

The combination of absolute environmental standards with ministerial direction may say, for example, that huge transmission lines shall be a permitted use in district plans—that is clearly what is envisaged. National environmental standards will say, for example, that electromagnetic fields must be allowed to be 100 times stronger than those that have been shown in recent UK studies to be associated with a doubling of leukaemia risk in children, because that is about the standard that is being advised by the National Radiation Laboratory, at the moment. The weakening of the rights of the public to make submissions, and the striking out of submissions from members of the public who offend councils in some way, is all part of closing down public opposition to this. This is being done for only one way of providing for our electricity needs. It is not as though there is no other way of keeping the lights on in Auckland. There are lots of alternatives that could do so without imposing those huge transmission lines across Waikato. But this Government has done absolutely nothing to make sure that those alternatives can be properly developed.

The Government has given the Electricity Commission the job of evaluating the transmission lines against the alternatives, but has not done anything to ensure that the alternatives will be properly developed so that they can be evaluated. There are certainly no law changes being proposed to make it easier, for example, for new gas finds to be used as a direct fuel, and to be taken to Auckland through the gas pipelines, rather than being wasted and turned into electricity at 50 percent efficiency, or less, which requires new transmission lines to get it up to Auckland. No legislation is being proposed to make it easier to get a coordinated programme of energy efficiency implemented across Auckland’s commercial buildings, where so much electricity is wasted at the moment and could be saved at much less cost than generating it. There is no special legislation, or other Government favours, being proposed to enable better metering and load management in order to send the right pricing signals in Auckland about the time of day of electricity use. There is a lot of technical stuff that one can do with the lines that will reduce that peak loading on the grid.

There is no special legislation, or other provisions, being put forward by this Government to make it easier to use wood waste in Northland as a fuel for forestry product processing, which would reduce the amount of power that had to be brought to Auckland. All those alternatives are clearly possible and cost-effective, but all the effort is going into making sure that it is easy for the pylons to be built, because that is what Transpower New Zealand wants to do. It is extremely unfortunate that when we have planning that is designed to facilitate a particular way out of some problems we have, such as power demand in Auckland, we are facilitating only one approach to the problem—actually the most destructive and unpopular approach—rather than facilitating the alternatives that could have solved the problem.

I will make a few comments on Part 2, which deals with the amendments to the electricity legislation. It has been amazing to hear some of the claims about this very small part of the legislation. I have had people in my office who have told me that this is the Government’s sneaky way of making provision for Transpower to do its work all through the Waikato, and so on.

There is a very simple amendment to allow for transmission lines, which are above the currently allowed-for capacity, to go over roads—not to go through farms and everywhere else, but to go across roads. We had representation from our advisers to the Local Government and Environment Committee. They were with us very briefly because there was so little to discuss about the legislation. We did make some changes, because some things came up in submissions that made it clear that not everything had been thought about, and they have now been resolved adequately, I believe.

United Future is happy to support this part, because it simply means we will have fewer difficulties later on. If consent is given for transmission power lines to go wherever, when they come to roads they will now not have to go through a whole lot of unnecessary processes just to get across the carriageway of the road. So United Future is very happy with the amendment, and we will support it.