Electricity Industry Bill

I am happy to take a brief call on the title of the Electricity Industry Bill in the manner of the Standing Orders, which allow, in this particular part of the debate, for a summing up of what has been quite a lively debate, and that is exactly what I intend to do. In summing up, several things can be said about this bill overall. First of all, the case has not been made for many of the provisions in the bill. Secondly, this bill does not focus on the most important issue, which is the price that New Zealand consumers pay for their electricity. This bill does not deal with that issue. It does not deal with the three pillars that Labour set forth in the New Zealand Energy Strategy, released in 2007: affordability, security of supply, and sustainability. The bill does not deal with those issues, and in many cases the Labour Opposition has put forward quite a compelling case in this debate that the bill goes the other way.

The Government has done very little to put forward any alternative arguments in this debate. We had a very brief call from the Minister of Energy and Resources at the beginning of the debate, and I think we have had three calls from National backbenchers in total for the remainder of the debate. We started this debate at about 4 o’clock this afternoon. It is now a quarter past 9 in the evening, and we have probably had about 15 minutes’ worth of contributions from Government members. They want to just ram this bill through. The reason they have not taken any more calls is that they know there is no justification for some of what they are doing. They know there is no justification for the asset swaps between Meridian Energy and Genesis Power. They have not had the commercial business case and analysis done to prove that it is worthwhile. They know that splitting up the Electricity Commission into all of the different agencies—the Electricity Authority, the Commerce Commission, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, and Transpower—splitting up all its functions and scattering them to the four winds, is not going to work. I know that John Hayes is very impatient, because that is the attitude of the National Government. Government members want to push this bill through. They do not want to hear any argument or any debate on it. They do not want to hear any facts. They do not want to let the facts get in the way of pushing a bill through the House.

This bill does not do what it sets out to do. It does not deliver on the promise of lower power prices that National made to New Zealanders before the last election. Members opposite are denying it now. They have stood up and said that they never promised lower power prices, but that is exactly what they promised. I visit people in my electorate and I ask them what they expected National to do. By their rhetoric, they expected National to take some steps towards lowering power prices. In fact, we heard in this debate that National not only will not try to lower power prices but is content to keep the increases a little lower than they otherwise would have been. So prices will keep rising under this National Government despite all of National’s pre-election rhetoric, and it will still take a dividend from those State-owned enterprises, until it sells them off.

We know that that is the Government’s real agenda. It wants to finish the job that Max Bradford did not finish, which is to sell what is left of the electricity system. The previous National Government made a mess of the electricity system in the late 1990s. It is very difficult for any Government now to deal with the challenges facing the electricity industry, because of the mess the previous National Government made of the electricity sector. Now we are stuck with what we have.

This bill does not go anywhere close to addressing the concerns of New Zealanders about the functioning of their electricity system. This is a bad bill.

I will take a short call on the Electricity Industry Bill—in fact, it should be called the “Electricity (Not Fair, Does Not Deal with Prices, and Does Not Address the Issue of Environmental Sustainability) Bill”. Time and time again members on this side of the Chamber have raised very serious issues in terms of the price differentials between domestic users and industry users of electricity. What did we hear from John Hayes on the other side? We heard babble. That is what he called the very important issues that members on this side of the Chamber have raised—babble. Shame on him. The issues that we are raising in the Chamber are the ones that consumers are raising with us every day. They are worried about increasing power prices. They are worried about bills becoming harder to pay. They are worried that when the increase in GST comes in, the proposals in this bill will not do anything to lessen the increased domestic power prices that they are faced with.

Time and time again members on this side of the Chamber have raised the critical issues in a broader context, but more particularly to deal with the aspects that this bill purports to affect. We are concerned about the asset swaps. There is no clear evidence that asset swaps are clever. This is more about politics, rather than substance. We believe it will affect the Waitaki catchment significantly. The Government may well have to come back and deal with the effects of a bad decision.

Although we are dealing with the title, the bill does not address in any way whatsoever the issue of fairness in terms of price setting. We are worried about that. We think that any change to the electricity sector should at least try to give some guarantee on the fairness of price setting. Chris Hipkins has very well constructed the issues that Labour is most concerned about, and that is to ensure greater affordability of electricity prices, especially in addressing the differentials between domestic and industrial users. In looking at security of supply in terms of greater renewable energy generation, there was no clear signal or leadership on that front or on greater price predictability, and we believe that consumers deserve it.

There was no response from the Minister, and not even a contribution from any Government member, to explain why there are glaring omissions like the ones that Labour has raised. The bill should be called the “Electricity (Not Fair and Not Dealing with Increased Domestic Power Price Users) Bill”. I do not agree with the bill and Labour does not support it.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 166 in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee be agreed to.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

Bill reported with amendment.