Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well I'm sure we'll be able to deliver for the Minister who has just retaken his seat. The Electricity Industry Amendment Bill does have some good features to it. It has some bad features to it. On the basis of those features we will be voting against it. The bill—it does what the Labour Party do quite well—adds in more bureaucracy and we have in particular the establishment of an Electricity Consumer Agency to represent small businesses and private consumers. We already have a Commerce Commission. We have other mechanisms to deal with those sorts of issues and we fail to see why would need another agency to represent those people. It is true that we have had some issues in the past with people who have serious illnesses and have had their electricity turned off inadvertently by a lines company unaware that there was an issue in that particular household. But that's largely been dealt with but still it is good to have those things dealt with in a proper way.In fact we see if we graph the access to energy and GDP they track one another almost identically—as does the increase in life expectancy. So electricity and the access to energy is absolutely essential in a modern world and—I note in the Minister's opening statement he said—in a low-carbon economy which seems to be in every speech just about being given these days. It is important but what's more important in the energy trilemma is actually energy security and then secondly energy affordability and I think then going to the renewable aspect as the last leg of the stool. Unfortunately if you take one of those legs away or put too much emphasis on one a three-legged stool does work a lot better than a two-legged one. Unfortunately we're having a lot of focus these days on a one-legged stool and the other two legs have been forgotten. And we only have to look to the UK to see the issues that this bill brings up as potential issues for us to face here and that is that as electricity prices go through the roof energy security for people becomes at risk and people have to make a decision either to heat or to eat and that is a huge issue in the Northern Hemisphere as we speak.One of the other things that really concerns the National Party is the fact that the Minister has the power to change the code under a set criteria in the bill and I think that's really of great concern to the National Party. It's a massive overreach really because the Minister is going to take the role of the Electricity Authority for whom actually that is their job and their role. They live this every day and yet the Minister and/or some of her officials in her office or whoever happens to be the Minister at the time will have the power to make those decisions and I would argue the Electricity Authority is far better placed to know that. Certainly if we leave those sorts of decisions in the hands of a Minister that is the road to disaster.Barbara Kuriger: Particularly this Minister.STUART SMITH: Well I couldn't possibly comment on that. I think it's akin to giving the Minister of Finance the power to say I don't like the official cash rate that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand have just set. I'm going to change it. I'm going to make it whatever the number is." We don't do that and yet that's exactly the power we are giving to the Minister within this bill and that is why we oppose this bill. It's actually not needed. It's not necessary. It's an overreach and I think this particular Minister has a view of doing this sort of thing all the time; this is a bit of a track record on this—Barbara Kuriger: Overreach.STUART SMITH: —and it's not good. It is overreach. It's something I'm very concerned about and I'm sure other speakers will be as well. I would like to just list some of the reasons that under new section 44B: "[The] Minister may amend [the] Code to include specified matters … including provisions for any matter specified in subsection (2) if the Minister—(a) considers that the Code's provisions for the specified matter are not satisfactory; and (b) is satisfied that the amendment will further the Authority's objectives in section 15." Well how is the Minister better placed to do that than the Electricity Authority? I don't know. We've got a former Minister of Energy who's going to speak later in this debate from the National Party and he's a very good Minister of Energy and I'm sure he'll be able to bring—I'm not casting aspersions on any Minister but I doubt any Minister has the wisdom to be all over this in the way that the Authority would be and don't think they have the right to do that. I think further on in 44B (3): "The Minister may amend the Code under this section as if the Minister were the Authority and sections 38 to 40 apply accordingly with any necessary modifications." I mean it says it all. Why have an Authority if you've got a Minister that knows it all? There's no need for it. I just think—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Back to the future.STUART SMITH: Yeah it is back to the future. I'm reliably informed this used to be the way things were done and that's part of the reason we have an Electricity Authority these days. So I won't delay this anymore. We do not support the bill on the basis that I've outlined and I think that the Government would do well to learn from this debate in this era and not try these sorts of things in the future."