Parker David: Urgent Debates — Energy—Project Aqua Cancellation 
Parker David: Urgent Debates — Energy—Project Aqua Cancellation 
[Volume:616;Page:12070] 
DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) 
: 
 Mr Connell has done it again. Whenever he or other National members get up to talk about this issue do they deal with the substance of it? No they attack me. I hold the electorate of Otago—having taken that formerly safe National seat at the last election—because the electorate knew that the Labour Party would treat it fairly and so it does. We have had two contributions from National members today. First of all we had Roger Sowry who amongst his inventions suggested that he first learnt today that the Government appointed David Benson-Pope responsible for a review of the Resource Management Act. All the rest of us in the House know that that was tabled on 26 February when Mr Benson-Pope was appointed Minister and his delegations announced. Sorry Roger Sowry wrong again! 
Then we heard from Mr Connell again. Mr Connell last rose to attack me soon after he had put out a press release claiming that I had not been to any of the meetings in the electorate that Ministers had called in relation to these Project Aqua issues. I actually chaired the meetings. Obviously he was not there. Obviously he did not read the newspapers either because they reported that I chaired the meetings. 
Then on the one hand we heard that Mr Connell thought the project had been pulled because the cost had in his opinion ballooned to $2 billion yet 30 seconds later we heard him say that it was all because of Resource Management Act problems. What a load of cobblers! Project Aqua was a massive project. It was a $1.2 billion project would have had a 60-kilometre canal—virtually all of which would have been in my electorate—and would have had six hydro stations about the size of the Beehive. The 60-kilometre canal would have been as wide as this building including the batter. Up to 70 percent of the Waitaki River would have been put through the canal and 32 million cubic metres of earth would have had to be moved. This was a big project. 
John Key 
: So? 
DAVID PARKER 
: So Resource Management Act principles ought to be applied to decisions like this. I am absolutely proud of the position the Government has taken. The Prime Minister said it well yesterday. She said we are not in an era when Governments legislate for specific projects. We do not “think big” them. Who would? Despite its claims to the contrary recently National would. Last year Gerry Brownlee said the Resource Management Act ought to be truncated so that there were no delays before Project Aqua went ahead. So did Gerry Eckhoff from ACT. 
John Key 
: That’s true. 
DAVID PARKER 
: Mr Key says that that is quite true. So they do now acknowledge that despite the seriousness of this project they would have truncated proper Resource Management Act processes and let the interests of my electorate just be overridden in favour of the national interest. I am proud my Government did not do that. 
 I pay tribute to the members of the community who have participated in processes to date. Small communities facing applications like this are always challenged. There is an element of unfairness in that which is in the nature of any big decision. I take my hat off to those who stood up and shouldered those responsibilities on behalf of their community. Many in my electorate are pleased that Project Aqua is off. Some are disappointed but the vast majority of people—be they for or against it—are satisfied that the Government listened to their concerns and did not override due process. They are grateful that the Government did not “think big” this project—as National at times proposed it should. 
In terms of the decision to call Project Aqua off the  
Otago Daily Times 
 summed it up pretty well today when it stated that basically Meridian’s hand has been forced by growing uncertainty about the project and increasing costs—costs that Meridian understandably did not foresee when it began its investigations. Then it went to state something that I would like to record: “To give Meridian its due it has usually played with a straight bat.” That is true and I agree with Mr Jim Peters’ comments earlier that Meridian has behaved honourably throughout this and that it has complied with its obligations at law. 
I also say that I defend and applaud its decision to take a decision now to proceed no further. It has spent $45 million on the project in addition to some of the land acquisition costs—it will largely get the land acquisition costs back when it sells the land if it does. The $45 million spent on planning the project and engineering advice etc. is equivalent to 3 percent at most of the project cost. That 3 percent was wisely spent and I ask listeners and members to consider that compared with the last time a Government approached a big project which was the Clyde Dam. Hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money was wasted because there was inadequate planning at the time in addition to years of delay in the commissioning of the dam which had consequences in terms of the availability of electricity from the project. 
The Minister of Energy is being totally upfront when he says that the most important thing to him in terms of energy planning was getting a decision early rather than late so that alternatives could be pursued in the event that Project Aqua did not proceed. The worst outcome here would have been 2 further years of planning for Project Aqua and then Meridian deciding not to proceed with it because of the costs at that stage. Had that happened we would have lost 2 years in terms of the creation of other sources of generating capacity. 
I want to say something about energy generally in New Zealand. When the Hon Pete Hodgson took over this portfolio about 4 years ago we had come through Max Bradford’s so-called reforms. Since then of course the Government has had to intervene through the regulation of natural monopolies—the lines companies—and we have also had to intervene in terms of reserve capacity. We have also done some central planning of likely demand for electricity. There is a very good document that is available to people on the web at www.med.govt.nz under the energy section which looks at the New Zealand energy outlook to 2025. 
Reading that document dispels a few myths. Firstly we are not yet at crisis point for electricity generation. Secondly there are a number of alternatives. Thirdly coal is one of those alternatives that is being considered but at the moment it is more expensive. No one is prevented in New Zealand from building a coal-fired power station. A company can apply for and get a resource consent if it thinks it can make money from doing so. Companies do not think they can make money from doing so as evidenced by the fact that there have been no applications for such stations. It is not the fault of the Resource Management Act that Project Aqua or other coal stations have not proceeded. 
That is evidenced by some of the large consents that have been granted under the Resource Management Act. For example there are gas plants at Stratford and Otahuhu C that have been consented under the Resource Management Act. Various smaller hydro stations have been consented in my own electorate. There is also the wind farm near Palmerston North that has recently been consented. There is the Tauranga bridge and the pipeline. So it is not the Resource Management Act that has got in the way of Project Aqua it is the underlying economics and risks—as Meridian has said—in the upper catchment concerning whether other people can get some of the water that is already going through those dams which would threaten the viability not only of those dams according to Meridian but also of Project Aqua. Those are uncertainties that were not created by the legislation recently promoted to try to deal with planning deficiencies in the Waitaki but were consequences of the underlying law. 
In terms of the question that has been asked of me as to whether we will see any large-scale hydro in the future I think the jury is out on that. One of the things that became evident from Project Aqua was that there is change in the relative value of water for hydro compared with other uses like irrigation. For the first time in New Zealand we have a widespread water shortage. Produce prices have pushed up land prices. The economics of irrigation in comparison have improved. Technologies have changed through the likes of K Line irrigation making irrigation of rolling country now permitted. At the same time we have seen a narrowing of the gap between hydro and other sources of electricity like wind which has meant that there are choices for renewables that were not there 10 years ago. 
I am absolutely confident that the Government has the future energy needs of our country under control. I am sure that the Minister is dealing competently with managing demand-side issues so that we do not waste our energy as evidenced by the fact that we have a target over the next decade of increasing energy efficiency by 20 percent. I am confident that we will not have blackouts or brownouts. I am confident that this Government has properly protected the interests of my electorate against the calls for “think bigging” Project Aqua that were made by other parties. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.