Sowry Roger: Electricity and Gas Industries Bill — In Committee 
Sowry Roger: Electricity and Gas Industries Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15729] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 I want to take Minister Pete Hodgson’s attention for a while because he was not in the Chamber for the debate. I say to him firstly that the Commerce Committee did not decide to do this in the way he portrays it. In fact when we in the select committee asked about going to an unlimited amount of generation—and the Labour members were there when we asked the officials—the officials told us it was a policy decision. The Labour members of the committee voted for the Labour policy. One presumes that that was something the Minister decided. We were told earlier by Gordon Copeland that both he and the Minister decided on that new artificial limit. The debate really is about why we should have the limit. 
I accept the arguments the Minister made about what National did in the 1990s. As I said we changed our mind; it is not our policy now. 
The Minister has here a “get out of jail free” card. We can have unlimited generation by lines companies and because of the “CPI minus X” regulations and the regulatory environment the Minister has put around lines companies we can feel confident that the cross-subsidisation the Minister and his predecessors worried about will not occur—or if it does occur will be adequately picked up and monitored. We are confident with that. 
I think the Minister is confident with that as well in his heart of hearts. Otherwise why would he allow lines companies to have an unlimited number of windmills but not to have anything to do with gas? Before the Minister came to the Chamber tonight I put to members a situation. I was criticised because it was hypothetical but let us say it is not. We have two gas rigs currently drilling at sea. The Government should rightfully accept credit for having a couple of rigs out there after a long period without rigs. Some of that credit is to do with the Government and some is to do with the price of Maui Gas being right but those rigs are drilling now. I have heard the Minister say that he has been worried about finding gas and that that has been his biggest concern—rightly so. If a company finds gas for example in Canterbury and wants to bring it on and do a deal with a lines company to build a combined cycle plant—the last major one built in this country in New Plymouth was built by a lines company—it will not be able to do it. This bill will prevent it from doing that. 
Gordon Copeland who supports the bill said in the Chamber that that was OK and that he had talked to the Minister who said that amending legislation would be brought in to fix that should gas be found. I do not know whether Mr Copeland is right or wrong—I have no reason to disbelieve a God-fearing man—but I say to the Minister that that is a bit of a silly way of doing it so National will vote to remove the restriction. We will help the Minister so that he does not have to be a hostage to the Greens. I suspect that if the Minister were to put his hand up to vote for that even United Future would vote for it. I think United Future is kind of clinging to the fact that it has a small gain and it thinks that that is about where the politics are on this issue. 
The politics are in letting a lines company unleash some of its capital. The Minister will know as I know that lines companies are talking about investing in Australia. That is nutty when we need the investment here. It is crazy! If we can guarantee that those companies will not cross-subsidise the investment why not let them make it? As the Minister well knows lines companies are also looking at other investments that are way off beam from electricity. I gave the example before of ElectraLines which owns a finance company. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Who’s that? 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: ElectraLines. It owns the Oxford Finance Corporation in Levin and I do not think the Minister believes that that is a good use of money for a lines company. That is not what it should be doing. It should be investing in some generation if it wants to invest or just giving a rebate to consumers—I do not care what. I know the politics of the industry; I know what has gone on before; I am not trying to walk away—[ 
Interruption 
] The member can go on about that but I am not trying to walk away from any of it. 
National disagrees with the bill. In fact it might be made more difficult for us if there were no limit in the bill on lines companies. But I say to the Minister that we should remove that limit and let the lines companies live with “CPI minus X”. Let us have faith in the Commerce Commission: I am glad that that is where the Minister has left the regulatory regime and we will come to that in the next part. Let us do all that. Let us remove this silly clause that allows a lines company to put up as many windmills as it wants but does not allow it to put a small coal-fired unit or something else in place.