Hodgson Pete: Urgent Debates — Electricity Industry 
Hodgson Pete: Urgent Debates — Electricity Industry 
[Volume:608;Page:5841] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Energy) 
: 
 That was abysmal. That was absolutely hopeless. That was the most lacklustre performance I have heard even from that member for a very long time. I hoped for better. I hoped that we would get a bit of passion out of the Leader of the Opposition. I hoped that we would have heard something that I could have got my teeth stuck into. Is that the best the Opposition can do? Is that the best the Leader of the Opposition can do? 
What did he say? Can members remember? He has only just said it. Tell me what that member said. What is the National Party position? At the end of that 15 minutes what was National’s clear line? Did the Leader of the Opposition just pass himself in the corridor? If so what did he say? That is what I want to know. Did he say hello to himself as he passed himself in the corridors of power? Did the Leader of the Opposition say “Hi”? 
What did characterise that remarkable lacklustre contribution from that remarkable lacklustre Leader of the Opposition is this. It was a straight parade of prejudice. We saw it all. We saw the National Party decide that renewables are bad and fossils are good; and that Kyoto is bad and polluting is good. We had “good old boy” behaviour which the Leader of the Opposition himself does not believe in. We have had it for weeks. [ 
Interruption 
]We have had it from that member. The member who calls himself the Opposition spokesperson on energy has railed for weeks that the Resource Management Act is the cause of the problem; not the rainfall but the Resource Management Act; not the problems with the Maui reserves but the Resource Management Act. 
Leave aside the fact that since this Government has come to power more than 1300 megawatts has been consented. That is enough consents in the last 3½ years for a total of 8 years. The Resource Management Act is not the problem but the good old boys like to think that it is because they can roll out their prejudices: “We do not care too much about planning. Big boys do not care too much about consultation. Rob Muldoon did not care did he with the National Development Act? Why should we? We are going to roll out the Resource Management Act and beat it up even though it is a red herring; even though it is pure prejudice.” 
We heard stuff from Bill English that said that renewables are not reliable. Well he is right. It does not rain all the time. That is why the New Zealand electricity system is as it is. That is why we have thermal firming. That is why we have a mixture of renewable and thermal in this country. What the Leader of the Opposition seemed to say was that all the reserve generation will be thermal. Put a ring around it. He is absolutely right. But why would he make that comment? Because he thinks that fossil fuel burning is good and that sustainable futures are bad. Why? Because he is a real boy—at least he pretends to be. He does not really believe it but good old boys think that burning fossil fuels is good. 
I will tell members how silly this got. Some members of this House thought that the Government was against burning coal. We even had a television programme about it. Guess what needs to be known about coal? Renewables are cheaper. That is what needs to be known about coal. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: You’ve got to tax them. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: They are not taxed. [ 
Interruption 
] Coal fuel is much more expensive than hydro—tax or no tax. Ken Shirley jumps in by way of interjection to get another prejudice thrown into the debate. It is wrong again. The reason this Government is promoting renewables is that we do believe in a sustainable future. We do believe in making the best use of our resources. We do believe in having a range of electricity generation technology so that we can spread risk. We do believe that the Kyoto Protocol is important because we do believe that this climate is the reason that we have our economy at all. We are intent on playing our part in making sure they do it. 
Real boys do not have to do that—not good old boys. In the first two terms of this Government we will have a total of 1420 megawatts or thereabouts of new generation going in but the National Party wants another 60 out of the conservation estate. It does not want 1420; it wants 1480 and it wants to knock over a whole lot of trees to get the other 60 because that is what real boys do! That prejudice has been around this debate long enough and I for one am heartily sick of it. 
Then there is another strange bit of behaviour that has been going on from the Opposition parties time and again. It goes like this: “Why didn’t you do anything before?” and “You don’t have to do anything anyway.” See how it goes. I shall say it again: “Why didn’t you do it before?” and “You don’t have to do it anyway.” 
Rod Donald 
: Don’t count us in there. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: We certainly do not count the Greens in there. I most certainly do not count the Greens. Those comments are not aimed at New Zealand First either. They are aimed at the National Party and the ACT party: “Why didn’t you do it earlier?” and “You don’t have to do it.” We have had that sort of craziness going for weeks now. “2001 happened didn’t it; why didn’t you respond? The market will fix it; you don’t need to respond. You’ve had enough time to change it; you don’t need to change it.” and so on. We have had that outbreak of silliness for weeks and weeks. 
If I go to the National Party and try to work out whether it would have acted go to its statements and try to work what its real position is I do not get it easily but it seems clear that it would not have intervened. I do know that the National Party would privatise the State-owned enterprises just as it says: “You must send out statements of corporate intent to State-owned enterprises. You must ring them; you must send them out several statements of corporate intent. Send them out one a day. Ring them have them in beat them up send them but sell them. So arrange them organise them manipulate them make them take the losses but sell them.” That is the position the National Party has on State-owned enterprises: “Please make sure that you use your ownership correctly and then make sure that you have no ownership.” That is National’s position on State-owned enterprises. It is very garbled. It is what good old boys do when they want to privatise anything that moves and beat up on anything that it thinks the Government should beat up on. That is real boys getting a bit confused about themselves. 
So what do we do now? We go to the policies of the National Party and the ACT party. We will go to the ACT party first and find a lovely little idea from Ken Shirley on the website about making sure that all householders are forcibly exposed to the spot price which states: “Go to ACT’s energy policy.” We did that and guess what happened? “No matching documents found.” came up on the screen. That meant that the ACT does not have one. The ACT party has no energy policy. 
We then went to the National Party. The National Party is the largest small party in the House. It is bigger than New Zealand First. It is the largest small party in the House and is easily bigger than New Zealand First. One would expect National to have an energy policy. After all New Zealand First has an energy policy and the Greens have an energy policy. One would expect National which is even bigger than New Zealand First to have an energy policy. We went there and it did not have one. Even now it still has not made up an energy policy. 
Then we had the tax stuff from Bill English in his address. His day began with a shrill and strident press statement banged out at about 1 o’clock which is long before he could have understood what the Government was up to. We now know that he still does not. He banged out that shrill and strident press statement. I tell the Leader of the Opposition that he is unhappily the proud owner of a feral word processor. That was bewilderment. It was a series of unrelated statements. It was extremely noisy. It signified little indeed. The Leader of the Opposition should get rid of his feral word processor; the country needs no more of it. 
He came to the House and pulled out the dear old cliché about an electricity tax. He does not believe it himself. He knows enough about economics to know that that is not the right label. He knows that the label is wrong but he decides to use it 46 times or thereabouts in order to make a point and in order to get a bit of attention. That guy needs attention. He needs to be noticed and so he talks about the “Clark tax” the “Hodgson tax” the “electricity tax” and the “Labour tax” or whatever it is. He knows that it is a cross-insurance premium. That is actually what the market was designed to deliver—that is a cross-insurance premium where one generator would go to another generator. The consumer pays for it just like he or she pays for all electricity products. That is what one does when one buys electricity; one pays for it. That is how the market was designed. 
Members should go to last Saturday’s paper. Do they remember Tony Baldwin at the select committee? He was the guy who put through the reforms. Max never did understand them. There was a very interesting article on Tony Baldwin the guy who put through the reforms in the paper. It was quite a good article and pointed out that the market was designed to have cross-insurance premiums. It had a flick at one or two companies for not doing so and that was fair enough. The point is that the cross-insurance premium is what the Electricity Commission will do for the market because the market has failed. The market did not do that. It had long enough. Members cannot accuse me of impatience. Then that option will be taken away from it because it did not do that. 
For Mr English to come to the House and label that a tax when he knows that it is not proves to me that that guy is desperate for attention. What has happened is that New Zealanders as we enter the second winter in three having to save have said that they have had enough. They have said that and we have heard. We have said: “We as a country can have a higher level of security for an insurance premium. Today’s announcements were no more nor less than announcing what that security level will be. A security level will be set at a 1-in-60 dry-year risk and that is the first thing. It was enough to get us through 1992 without conservation; enough to get us through 2001 without a conservation campaign; and so far enough to get us through 2003 without a conservation campaign. That is what the security level will be. 
We also said what we thought the price would be and that would be less than 80c per household per week. One cannot have security for nothing. It is not priceless. However we have designed a system where one can have security for a low price. That is what a good Government should do. It seems that the National Party is intent on relying on the market in its purity and that is all. That suggests to me that the National Party is the cold-showers party. This country says that reputational risk is more important. The idea of future investment for example from our forestry sector is more important. The idea of saying to New Zealanders that the way of life in New Zealand is to have conservation campaigns every 2 or 3 years does not rest well with us. 
I finish by saying to the people of New Zealand that today we broke 6 percent for the first time. I thank and congratulate New Zealanders as they went through the 6 percent mark. I hope they are on the way to 7 percent and then 8 9 and 10. Because the changes we have announced today will not help us in time this winter. This winter we save. From now on we will have more security as a result of this Government’s interventions.