Hodgson Pete: Electricity (Renewable Preference) Repeal Bill — Third Reading 
Hodgson Pete: Electricity (Renewable Preference) Repeal Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:963] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 Here we are gathered this morning witnessing this nation moving backwards at speed—New Zealand is retro-advancing—and we have been doing this for the past couple of weeks. 
National says: “To hell with the global forces demanding a change of policy on the issue of climate change. To hell with that—we know best. We the New Zealand Parliament know better; we’re going to set up a committee because if we didn’t we would annoy Rodney and that won’t do. So we are going to set up a committee because Rodney doesn’t like the idea of climate change being kind of real or gathering pace so we will set up a committee. We have this legislation which says: ‘Hey to hell with all this stuff around climate change.’ Those scientists don’t really know what they’re going to do. We’re going to have some more gas-burning power stations and we’re going to get rid of the moratorium on that. That is great; that is progress. That is economic growth front and centre; that is turbocharging. We are heading back to the future at a hell of a pace.” 
National members put their heads in the sand and say: “We’re OK. It will all be OK. We don’t even need those biofuels. What the hell do you need biofuels for? What’s wrong with some good old decent oil a bit of petrol and a bit of diesel? It never did anybody any harm and who said it’s going to run out? When? They don’t even know precisely when. Therefore we don’t have to worry about it. Who gives a damn about the fact that people say there’s going to be peak oil everywhere? We don’t care about that. We’re the National Party and we just won a mighty fine election. We’re getting rid of anything that resembles nanny State. We don’t care about any of that stuff.” 
National members also say: “Actually who said you need to go retrofitting houses? For goodness’ sake let’s be practical here. People should just put on another cardie. We don’t need to have retrofitted houses. The fact that our countrypeople die in winter disproportionately—like more than they ever would in say Sweden or the UK—is because they do not put enough attention into putting on an extra cardie and they should put on an extra cardie. We don’t need to retrofit and besides which we’re asserting—because we’re the National Government and we just won a mighty fine election—that we do not even have any money for that. So who gives a damn about that? Actually who gives a damn about technology in general? Let’s get rid of the tax credit on that. We need to give that to some mighty fine people who supported us at the polls. They need an extra few dollars a week in their pocket and we didn’t have enough money to give them so we’ve gone and put a tax increase on to our very best companies and said ‘Sorry guys but we’re going to have to get rid of that tax credit. You have to pay a tax increase because we’ve got to give it to our rich mates.’ ” 
That is roughly what the past 2 weeks has been about and this bill is simply one of the mix. This bill is about a moratorium on thermal generation the details of which meant we could have it for peak-load generation and we could have it if we needed security of supply. It was a very very moderate moratorium but it has to go because it is nanny State. National members would say: “Who says we like moratoria? That sounds like control. We’re not into that; we’re into laissez-faire and if someone wants to put up a gas-fired power station instead of putting up a wind-fired power station well that is fair enough; what’s wrong with that—who cares? The market is going to be good for the environment—consult history. The market has been brilliant for the environment so far we say. So why don’t we just let it rip?”. That is basically the position that National has. 
When National had a go at putting some logic around why it wanted to get rid of a moratorium on thermal generation even as it argued for more renewable generation it failed. National argued for this time and time again. In fact Nick Smith was a cracker. He spent the entire debate saying that he really hates fossil fuel generation and greenhouse gases and that when Labour was in Government it was really hopeless—a terrible lot. But then he voted to get rid of the moratorium. The guy has a doctorate. He argues in one direction and votes in another and we sit there saying “Boy whatever happened to quality of tertiary education?”. This guy does not have logic that is consistent from one sentence to the next. And then we had the Minister Gerry Brownlee. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Did he speak? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The Minister did not speak. He did not speak in the entire Committee stage. He has two books one of which he has not even coloured in yet and he spent the entire time working on the book that he is colouring in— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Trying not to go outside the lines. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: —and not going outside the lines. He has probably done some good work but that is what he did—he coloured in his book. When he came to give his third reading address he decided he would give it to Labour because Labour was bad and irresponsible when it came to too much greenhouse gases and bad and irresponsible when it came to too much non-renewable energy—and away he went. 
At one point he decided he would tell us that we had put in some reserve generation—150 megawatts of diesel-fired reserve generation in the Hawke’s Bay—and he railed against the evils of this. He failed to tell us a couple of things. One of them is that it is reserve generation and cannot be used unless we are in trouble. Secondly there used to be a power station in the very same spot that was 150 megawatts and diesel-fired and which had been there for years. It was used as reserve generation but Contact had just sold it and gotten rid of it. Why? Because Max Bradford had been to town and decided that we would have a pure market approach to electricity and the pure market had run the lakes to the lowest level they had been at for many many years. So we are still trying to get through the side effects of the actions of that old man in a hurry Max Bradford who tipped this remarkable sector upside down. 
So here we go—a pretty pass we have reached. At the end of 2 sitting weeks loads of progress on environmental matters over the past 9 years—courtesy of the Labour Government courtesy of a Prime Minister who has a real vision for this stuff courtesy of some assistance sometimes a lot of assistance from the Green Party and courtesy of assistance from other parties including United Future and New Zealand First—is being ripped down and this process is well under way. The environmental vandals are in the hot seat they are going for bust and they reckon that their future is the only way forward. Their future is backwards in a hell of a hurry.