Cosgrove Clayton: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Cosgrove Clayton: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:647;Page:15983] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I was not going to take a call but I will take just a short call. Tonight we have made history in this Parliament. Tonight as the Minister has pointed out the level of—I do not think it is ignorance or to be charitable maybe it is—commitment research and intelligence from the National Party about things to do with energy especially in respect of the review of the Electricity Commission has been exposed. 
Mr Auchinvole—I think I pronounced his name right; he is rather sensitive about it—who I am told is National’s deputy spokesperson on energy got up and lambasted the Minister the Government and the Electricity Commission. In the course of doing that—and I give him credit for this as it is a serious issue—he expressed a fear about as he would put it the lights going out. For the benefit of those at home listening to this debate Mr Auchinvole tried to feign concern about what would happen in the energy industry and he then demonstrated the absolute precision of his knowledge on the issue. He decided to lambaste this Minister and this Government for a power crisis when the lights almost went out and there was almost a blackout. I can remember and members will remember the mobile generators down the road in Queen Street and all over the country. He decided to lambaste this Government for that. 
But I do not think there was a DNA match in the brain of that member or perhaps his lights had gone out or somebody had pulled the wires out from somewhere. Perhaps the pacemaker had not gone off—I do not know. He forgot that that event occurred under a National Government. That is the exact precision intelligence and grasp of the energy portfolio that the New Zealand public would be presented with if ever God help us that member made it to the Treasury benches as an Associate Minister as a deputy Minister or possibly even—given Gerry Brownlee’s lack of performance—as an energy Minister. 
Tonight the New Zealand people have actually seen the depth of knowledge that that member and his ilk have when it comes to energy. In respect of the Electricity Commission we would have to say that we know what that member would do if he took the Treasury benches: he would get rid of it. But he will not tell us what he would replace it with. 
Of course that member in his dissertation about what the previous National Government did—he thought it was a Labour Government that blacked out New Zealand but it was a National Government that did so—forgot to remind the New Zealand people about the devastating effect that Mr Max Bradford his former colleague and energy Minister had on this country. We all recall the great claim that electricity costs would go down that people would be better off and that it would be cheaper under a Bradford regime. But he tore apart an electricity regime that I think worked pretty well. Most pensioners who remember it would agree with that and most New Zealanders who remember it would agree with that. But of course when Mr Auchinvole got the time frame and the Government wrong in his dissertation he did not have the ability or the intestinal fortitude to lay claim to that policy that was his and that has his fingerprints all over it. He was part of it; he may not have been in Parliament then but he was part of it and he takes the credit for us now. But I tell members that every Kiwi remembers what it used to be like and every pensioner remembers what it used to be like before his ilk got hold of it and effectively gutted and destroyed an effective Electricity Commission. 
What this Minister has done and what the electricity commissioner has done is put in some frameworks to encourage competition and to get a real market situation working. What he failed to do was to tell us anything tonight about what he would do if he were in Government—not one thing. He even got critical dates and times in history wrong. I invite the New Zealand people to get on the parliamentary website get that member’s  
Hansard 
—which was from about 20 minutes ago at about half past nine—and read word for word a silly speech from a silly member. 
Report noted.