Mark Ron: Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Mark Ron: Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I stand to take a short call on behalf of my colleague Peter Brown who is unable to take this call tonight. Energy is his portfolio. Having listened to the previous speaker Jeanette Fitzsimons the leader of the Green Party I did a quick skim back through the membership of the Commerce Committee. I noted that not only were the Greens not there but also New Zealand First members were not there. Maybe some of these committees lack the extra peripheral vision that sometimes comes with having alternate parties represented more strongly and more forcefully on them. One of the sad realities of having a Parliament dominated by the two old-hack parties is that we tend to get the same two old-hack views. When alternate parties do not get a seat we clearly do not get alternate views. 
John Hayes 
: “Mr Xenophobia”. 
RON MARK 
: We have people like John Hayes the outgoing member for Wairarapa sitting there and championing Max Bradford’s reforms which were going to be the solution to all of our electricity problems. Clearly they are not. I guess it is a source of embarrassment to National members every time I say “Max Bradford” and Wayne Mapp has just shuddered visibly in front of me in the House. I can understand why he would do so. 
I cannot help but notice a couple of things. Mr Hayes should not chuck such unparliamentary terms as “xenophobia” across the House and he should not accuse a member of being xenophobic. Mr Hayes entered into a rather horrible deal with a lady of Asian descent and a figure of about $980000 was involved. I heard on the grapevine that after some considerable pressure he has paid most of that money back to her. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Narrow. 
RON MARK 
: I know that I need to narrow the debate but xenophobia has nothing to do with the electricity legislation before us and if Mr Hayes is able to make such interjections he does deserve a bit of a slap-down on that note. If he would just look after the Asian investors whom some people have accused him of ripping off we would not be in these embarrassing situations. 
I want to say at this point in time because it seems the entire House is in agreement that New Zealand First will support this Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill. Sometimes when we are passing reforms through this House such as those of the previous National Government under the guidance of Max Bradford—who gave us the wonderful electricity reforms that were marketed as giving higher competition into the market giving our farming community a better choice and giving businesses a better choice and through those choices there would be cheaper prices—we get so fooled by the smoke that Cabinet Ministers put up that we fail to see the reality until it smacks us in the face. Sadly the incident that arose that brought this legislation to the House smacked us all in the face. 
Some of those people who today sit on the Opposition front bench—including the three seats occupied by Nick Smith Lockwood Smith and Maurice Williamson and they were all sitting there this afternoon—were front-bench Cabinet members in that Government. And this is supposedly the refreshed look of the incoming Government! There ain’t nothing refreshing about those faces. They are tired and old. We would have more confidence if we saw some of the younger more enlightened members who are sitting on the Opposition backbenches like Shane Ardern and Nathan Guy coming to the front bench. If they came to the front benches we might be able to have some confidence going forward that we would have a better looking Government-in-waiting. 
I was trying to say that all of us as members of Parliament spend our time trying to help low-income families particularly those on fixed incomes such as the elderly to make ends meet. All of us from the Canterbury area and I assume from down in the lower regions of the South Island where it is colder—some of those marginal areas that have been discussed this evening—end up dealing with people who are too afraid to turn on their heaters in their homes because of the cost of the bills. I know from the experience of knocking on doors at 11 o’clock in the morning in Christchurch in the winter that I have very often found elderly people sitting wrapped up in quilts because they have been too afraid to put on their electric heaters. This is complicated by the fact that Christchurch then ripped all the fireplaces out of the State homes and the council homes in pursuit of a clean-air policy. 
My only message to some parties in this House is that when they pursue particular philosophies like market-driven forces and the idea that the “market will deliver” and they repeat that mantra or when they pursue policies on the environment and advocate that at all costs we must clean up the air we need to spread our vision a little bit and think about the consequences. The consequence of taking all the fireplaces out of the homes of the elderly and the low-income families in Christchurch was that many froze to death. They could not afford to turn on the electric fires in their homes and they were too terrified of the consequences of doing that in peak winter consumptive periods. Unfortunately the tragedy that occurred in Auckland and the death in respect of that case brought that message home loud and clear but it is a message that came home far too late. 
I think New Zealand First’s only plea to people particularly to the members of the two major parties because they tend to dominate what happens in this House is to apply a little peripheral vision a little less of the ideology a little less of the mantra and a little bit more practicality. The members of those parties should go down to the farm and talk to some of the cockies who have been living through these conditions and trying to manage businesses in the most extreme climates and in the most demanding of times. They should take a dose of reality. They should go into the low-income suburbs such as Aranui in Christchurch and in west Auckland and South Auckland and look at the real impacts. When those members start preaching the mantra that the market will deliver they should please remember that the market’s prime motive and the prime motive for the electricity industry—an area where we cannot afford to lose our conscience—when given that free rein is to make a profit. That is all. 
It is good to see this legislation here because it does return some conscience to the operation of the electricity industry. This legislation returns a little reality and it brings a wider view to all of us in this place that we have a wider responsibility to taxpayers to the consumers of electricity and to the citizens of this nation than simply to return a profit and a bottom line to our ledgers.