Martin Tracey: Standing Orders — SessionalText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Standing Orders — Sessional[Sitting date: 06 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16430. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Every now and then it is worth stating the obvious. I think I am probably repeating the obvious but let us be clear. This motion is necessary only because Meridian Energy Ltd has been partially sold by the National Government. Let us be 100 percent clear: that is why the motion is needed. It is our view that the sale of Meridian Energy Ltd was completely contrary to New Zealand’s national interest.This motion merely cements in the fact that a National Government has been a complete and utter disaster for the New Zealand electricity system. The National Government took a functional and essentially sound system run by a Government department and destroyed it. Starting with Max Bradford’s theory-driven ideologically based so-called reforms it has foisted a total dog’s breakfast on the New Zealand public and this motion shows that it has learnt nothing. This madness—the folly that keeps on taking—continues. After over 5 years in Government National has brought absolutely zero improvement to this sector.The Minister of Finance’s opening speech merely reinforced that this National Government is still addicted to the market however much a fantasy that is especially in the electricity generation and distribution sector. Through the sale that necessitated this motion what do we actually have to thank this National Government for? Firstly for high electricity prices for New Zealanders despite as Mr Parker just said New Zealand as a nation having a great advantage in renewable energy sources notably in hydro power. It is a huge comparative advantage that has been squandered. We now have a system that is good only for generating higher prices for the long-suffering consumer. We now have a system of mind-numbing bewildering complexity under which any sort of price hike can be rationalised and justified. Thanks to a National Government the electricity sector is now so bewildering so arcane and so impenetrable that it needs an army of consultants and business.Thanks to a National Government we have a proliferation of organisations in this sector. We have an explosion of management and chief executive officers all generating immense costs in justifying their existence. Recently we had the absurd spectacle of the Electricity Authority trying to tell us that night was actually day. It claimed that a study of power charges over the last 30 years shows that “consumers in the past were hugely under-charged for their electricity.” This breathtaking claim was of course immediately exposed for the nonsense that it was by objective and independent commentators but this is typical of the Orwellian double-speak that now characterises the official party line on the electricity sector. Many a National Party spin doctor would be proud of the audacity of the Electricity Authority’s ability to rewrite history. With the $230000 that Dr Brent Layton receives as chairperson of the board of Meridian Energy and the $270000 that the chief executive officer Carl Hansen receive—along with a possible performance bonus of an additional $48000—the New Zealand public are quite right to ask what actual value the Electricity Authority provides.But of course no National Minister has any interest in the real truth and the truth is that over the past decade electricity prices have risen at twice the rate of inflation. National’s asset sales programme including the partial sale of Meridian Energy has been an act of economic sabotage. It is nothing less than an economic crime. It is no exaggeration to say that the sale of public energy assets like Meridian Energy has been an exercise in robbing the people of New Zealand to favour a few.We pick up the point that Mr Parker made around water. When I was recently in the Republic of China a local Minister asked me: “How will you defend your water when the water crisis comes?”. We do not need an army to try to come and take our water. The National Government has started selling our access to it through partial privatisation of our rivers and through the partial privatisation of our power companies.Electricity supply is fundamental to society and the economy. It is the basis of our standard of living. Yet instead of creating electricity policy on the basis of the common good and on the basis of the national interest the National Government has used it to loot the public.This motion is a meaningless procedural gesture. It is an insult to the public. After all the damage this National Government has done to an essential part of New Zealand’s infrastructure New Zealand First will strongly oppose this motion.