Connell Brian: Electricity and Gas Industries Bill — In Committee 
Connell Brian: Electricity and Gas Industries Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15989] 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 At first glance Part 5 of the Electricity and Gas Industries Bill does not seem to be very significant. But it does have an important theme running through it: the theme of disclosure. I draw the Committee’s attention to clause 47 “Functions of the Minister of Energy” and in particular to clause 47(d) which states “the collection and disclosure of information in connection with petroleum reserves and petroleum production in order to—(i) promote informed investment decisions; and (ii) improve security of supply in the gas and electricity markets.” I want to deal with subparagraph (i) first and to say that disclosure is important. It is important to the Crown so that the Crown is in a position whereby it can ascertain reserves. I say to the members of the Committee that that is a pivotal component in the planning of any economy—it is pivotal to our prosperity. How we get companies to cooperate in full disclosure is really a matter of contention and the way the Minister has gone about it is a way that I do not think is right. I believe that we would get much better disclosure if we relied on goodwill. Certainly we can legislate for and threaten all kinds of punitive actions just as the Minister is intending to do under this legislation—particularly under Part 4—but in the end that is the stick approach. 
The National Party suggests that we surely need a bit of a carrot. Surely it would have been better to design legislation that had the support of the industry. This is an issue that we cannot ignore. How can we hope to have goodwill for this legislation when all the major submitters said that we have it wrong? I want to name some of those submitters because they are big hitters. They are household names across this country: the Electricity Networks Association Contact Energy Ltd Federated Farmers Mighty River Power the Major Electricity Users Group Powerco Vector Ltd TrustPower Ltd—and the list goes on past that point. Surely we should have listened—or the Minister should have listened—to the concerns those industry experts were raising particularly if we want to be assured as a country that we are getting full disclosure about our petroleum reserves so that we can have some confidence that we can plan for our future prosperity. I come back to subparagraph (ii) of clause 47(d) which states: “improve security of supply in the gas and electricity markets.” That sounds good and of course we all want that to occur. But again how does one guarantee that security if one puts in legislation that the major industry groups say just will not fly? 
I know the Minister in the chair the Hon Harry Duynhoven would like to take a call and respond to that issue because it is a very critical question. I know that that member coming from New Plymouth where this is an important issue that he will be dealing with on a daily basis will want to rise and answer that question. If I go back to Part 4 briefly—that gets carried forward into the security argument—we have a situation whereby the Minister is prescribing in law that after having gone through exploration and having found gas or petroleum reserves the companies that have risked hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital will now be put into the position of having to share that infrastructure.