Fitzsimons Jeanette: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:618;Page:13792] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 A large part of the expenditure in the supplementary estimates is still paying for the mistakes of the past. I will talk particularly about electricity and transport. We can see here the effects of National’s electricity deconstruction where we ended up over the last few years with nobody regulating the electricity industry—the only country in the world that had tried to deregulate the electricity industry put in place a market and put no regulator in control. For some years we have also had nobody responsible for ensuring security of supply which is a particular problem in a hydro-based system when we have dry winters. We all know the effects of that after having two winters in three when the rain did not come and we had inadequate capacity. 
We have had a 2-year experiment under this Government with industry self-regulation and it has finally been admitted that it has failed. The Electricity Commission has been put in place as a regulator and $20 million of the supplementary estimates is to cover the cost of that. We welcome the appointment of the commission. We would have liked to see it 2 years earlier but we welcome it as better late than never. We hope the commission will now move to put in place electricity industry rules to ensure that the very good statements in the Government policy statement on energy are actually implemented. We hope they are rules that allow the connection of distributed generation and small-scale renewables to the grid without impediment and discrimination; rules that allow the demand side to engage with the electricity market and allow for a demand exchange which would greatly lower the cost of supply in an emergency; rules that minimise greenhouse gases so that we do not burn gas or coal and spill hydro; and rules that provide for security of supply. 
The largest part of this energy supplementary estimate is a new power station—$165 million for a new distillate-burning power station in Hawke’s Bay. The really interesting thing about that is that this is a power station being built on land owned by Contact Energy which is to manage the power station. Why? Because until a very short time ago Contact Energy had a power station on that very site. It was sold to the company by the National Government; a power station very like the one that is being built now. What did Contact Energy do with it? It dismantled it and sold it overseas because it thought it had surplus capacity. Now we taxpayers are paying for a station to be built again on that site to replace something that should never have been sold to Contact Energy in the first place and should never have been sold by Contact Energy in the second place. 
The other scandal that has led to this expenditure was the sale of New Zealand Rail in 1993. This year $116 million and further expenditure in the out-years for some time is required to revive the rail system that has been allowed to run into the ground under its private owners. It became a cash cow for Fay Richwhite and that company’s mates who through a series of manipulations managed to take out of the company more than they had put into it by far leaving it in a very sorry state. 
 In 2001 the Green Party called for the Government to take back the track. That demand was also made by the transport unions and 2 years later the Government agreed that we cannot allow our national rail system to fail. It is an important part of New Zealand infrastructure it is a very important part of a future in which oil will be much more expensive and we need to make sure that it is still working—rather than having the sorts of disasters there have been on the Napier-Gisborne line—buckled tracks and heat stress and so forth. The Government has now moved to take the track back under Government control and we support that. So money in the supplementary estimates is providing for the setting up of TrackCo and for investing in the track to get rid of the technical problems that have formed a major barrier to enhanced use of rail transport over the last few years. 
Capital is also going to provide a loan to the Auckland Regional Council for the purchase and upgrade of rolling stock for the suburban rail system. Auckland’s suburban rail system is still skeletal compared with what is in Wellington and Wellington’s could be improved as well. We look forward to Auckland developing a commuter rail system that will be better than Wellington’s and that would help a lot with congestion on the motorways. 
There are capital contributions for the development of the national rail corridor overall; for double tracking of the Auckland rail corridor so that trains can actually pass each other when they are going out west; and for the purchase and upgrade of the Wellington Railway Station which itself should never have been sold either. 
It has been a very expensive lesson for New Zealanders to find out what happens when State assets are sold off particularly strategic ones that are crucial to our energy and our transport future. We welcome the expenditure on reversing those disasters and we note that it will be some years yet before we stop paying for the mistakes made by previous Governments.