Brownlee Gerry: General Debates 
Brownlee Gerry: General Debates 
[Volume:608;Page:5484] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam) 
: 
 That was to say the least an interesting speech— 
David Benson-Pope 
: Gerry Brownlee was listening to that too. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Is my time starting again Mr Speaker? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has 4 minutes 48 seconds. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: That is very unfair. I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. No one else has had his or her speech interrupted at the beginning like that. In fact it has normally been the case that particularly when there has been interruption from the Government senior whip the time might be given again. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have just come back to the Chair as the member knows. I will take his word. I will start his time from now. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: That was a most interesting speech delivered by the Hon Tariana Turia. She raised some points that are worthy of thinking about. I understand she would want to question some of the positions taken by the National Party. On the one hand I am inclined to respond to them in this forum but on the other hand I would simply like to acknowledge that those things have been listened to and at a more appropriate time that debate should perhaps continue. 
I want to say to our friend from the Green Party Sue Kedgley that it is extraordinary that the Green Party should stand up here today and have a real lash at the Government over the mass inoculation of the west Auckland population while still hold out with its support for the Government on matters of confidence and supply. I would have thought that if something is of such importance and the party genuinely believes that life and limb are at risk then perhaps it should be far more conditional than it appears to be in offering its support to prop up Helen Clark’s Government. There are words we could use to describe that sort of behaviour but they are unparliamentary and I will not go into them. 
I want to talk today about the term that appears to have come from the public as we are picking it—from the talkback discussions that are going on at the present time. It was not so long ago that it was depressing for someone like me to listen to talkback radio because all one got was people ringing in and saying how wonderful Helen Clark was what a great Government the Labour Government was and how wonderful were all the things it was doing for New Zealand. Well let me tell members that the researchers from the Labour Party who do nothing other than sit around listening to the radio most days will now be feeling very deeply depressed because the worm has turned and people are seriously questioning what this Government is all about. They are seriously questioning what Helen Clark is all about and where she is leading us. 
They are I think somewhat perplexed to learn that New Zealand is shifting its foreign policy emphasis to this new Franco-German-Chinese arrangement that the Prime Minister says everybody wants to talk about and be part of. They are I think also perplexed that the Government seems simply to put together little packages of explanation every time it gets into trouble on domestic policy. The Government is in deep trouble over the power crisis that this country currently faces. I want to point to an article in this morning’s paper by Murray Jackson Chief Executive of Genesis in which he says that Genesis is no longer a reserve or standby-type operation that it is generating most of the time at full capacity. That I think underlines for this House how deep this crisis is because if a company like Genesis the biggest thermal generator in the country is running at capacity most of the time and the lakes in the southern hydro system are running very very low then there is no reserve capacity and the only option for New Zealanders is to switch off and go cold or have the lights blacked out for long periods. 
The Government is still crossing its fingers and hoping that something might happen to get it out of this sort of trouble. We are getting the semi-announcements coming bit after bit. For example we are told that 2000 megawatts of new generation has been consented to. Well it has been consented to for 4 years and it has not been built. Why? The reason is that no one building that capacity can guarantee fuel source to fire up the generators. We are told that some 560-odd new megawatts of plant has been put on in the last couple of years but when we analyse those statistics we find out that it is only 166 megawatts. What it all leads to is that the current crisis is about a deficit in generating capacity. 
I want to make it clear to the House today that no amount of re-amalgamation turning back the clock or fancy words will fix the fact that New Zealanders will go cold in their homes this winter as a result of Pete Hodgson not having his eye on the ball for far too long.