Sowry Roger: Urgent Debates — Energy—Project Aqua Cancellation 
Sowry Roger: Urgent Debates — Energy—Project Aqua Cancellation 
[Volume:616;Page:12060] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 Why is it that the Minister of Energy seems to be the only person with knowledge of the sector who thinks that everything is OK? He is the only person who says that it is all right. This morning on  
Morning Report  
I heard him say: “Well Project Aqua has fallen over but listen Sean we’ve got lots of little bits that will come together and if you add up all the little bits then we’ll be OK.” No one in the sector believes him—not a person not an energy company not the Government’s own State-owned enterprises not the private sector not the gas industry and not the coal industry. No one believes this Minister. 
This Minister is showing no leadership. He has absolutely no plan for the future supply of electricity or energy for this country. This Minister is being dragged along by the select committee. The National members on the select committee are saying: “Let’s have a serious look at some of the limits that the bill imposes on lines companies around generation” and Minister is saying: “Well if you want to double it quadruple it so be it. Make a decision.” There are no decisions from this Minister. He never makes any decisions at all. He is being dragged along on gas exploration. After 4 years he has realised that no one is doing anything so he is out there saying: “We might do some drilling. I’ll make an announcement next week and we can have another look at it.” 
It is the same with the Resource Management Act. This project was scuttled because of the Government’s own refusal to address the Resource Management Act and the constraints that that piece of legislation puts on any major project. The Government and the Prime Minister were in the House today. She got up and said: “No it wasn’t the Resource Management Act; it was a whole lot of other reasons.” I went back to my office and what did I see? I saw that there was a Government announcement today at 3.12 and it states that the Government has appointed a Minister to review the Resource Management Act. At 2.12 today in response to question No. 1 we were told that it was all OK and that the Resource Management Act was not a problem. One hour later the Government had appointed a Minister to review the Resource Management Act. Unfortunately the Government is not that serious about it—it has appointed David Benson-Pope. So it is not taking this issue very seriously at all. 
Mr Benson-Pope has been put in charge of the Resource Management Act matters specifically—not the Minister in charge of the Resource Management Act the Minister for the Environment. The Government has not used her. This is another case of the girls not getting the jobs. They are using Mr Benson-Pope. They are putting him in charge of a Resource Management Act review when just an hour beforehand the Prime Minister had told the House that it was all OK and that there was no problem with the Resource Management Act at all. 
Also I want to tell this Government that the problem with energy supply will not be just around Project Aqua. This country is also facing a huge problem with the transmission of electricity around the country. Transpower is facing huge problems as it goes about trying to upgrade the lines around the country because of the Resource Management Act. Transpower has been to the Government and has talked about it at the select committee. It is a major issue and the Government has done nothing. Today must be a happy day for Mr Parker. He is so strong—as the MP for Otago he has been resolute for the last 12 months not to be on any side on this issue. He has been neither for it nor against it. That might have seemed really smart but I have to tell Mr Parker that our polling shows it was pretty stupid and the member will see that coming next year. There is a train coming down Mr Parker’s track. He will stand in the middle of the track not knowing whether he is for or against it and it will bowl him over. 
This is a serious situation. Project Aqua was going to meet somewhere between 4 to 6 years of growth in electricity demand in this country. Without that the Minister needs to come off the fence urgently and decide where we will get the electricity that we need to grow. The Government needs to be upfront and honest with New Zealanders about its plan. Is it the Government’s plan to get rid of Comalco and feed that 15 percent extra into the economy? Is that the plan? The scuttlebutt around the Government departments is that that is the unwritten agenda coming from this Minister and ironically from the Minister for Industry and Regional Development Jim Anderton. Will Mark Peck’s last act be to see the Comalco contract not signed and that company leave this country just like he is seeing his schools closed in that part of the country? Is that the grand plan for the future or is there a grand plan around extra development and extra supply? If there is we have not seen it. We are not seeing it with exploration. 
The Government has said no to the Dobson hydro scheme and the Minister reaffirmed that today. No it will not allow that hydro scheme to be built. So companies are saying: “Well the Minister was agreeing this morning on radio saying we are going to see more boutique hydro.” Perhaps the Dobson scheme is too big to be boutique. Are we allowed only little wee uneconomic hydro schemes now? Is that what will supply us? What about coal? The Minister has been very anti-coal when he talks to people around the industry—very anti-coal. He is adamant that it is not the way forward. Well I say to the House that National will not be imposing any carbon tax on coal. National will repeal any carbon tax that Labour imposes because we do not believe that placing New Zealand industry at a disadvantage with artificial taxes such as the carbon tax is the way forward to encourage a strong growing economy. 
Is it any wonder that companies do not take up the Minister’s challenge when he says: “Go and build a station.”? That is what he said about coal in the House today. He said: “Go and build a station and see how uneconomic it is.” Well of course no one will build a station. The Government has not even determined the level of the tax. We are told it is about 1.5c. How can anyone plan 20 years out? They cannot even plan 2 years out in the energy sector because the Government is determined that we will not have coal and the Minister is determined that he will make it uneconomic. So we come back then to a Government that is simply sitting there without a plan. It is putting all its eggs in the wind basket. It is basically saying that we need a lot more windmills around the country and that will solve the problem. But everyone we talk to in the energy sector— even the State-owned enterprise Meridian Energy at the breakfast it hosted a few weeks ago—was at pains to say that wind was not the answer. They are engaged in it but they are at pains to say that it does not will not and will never provide for all the growth in demand. 
Hon Annette King 
: Who said that? 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: Keith Turner said that. The Minister of Health should listen a bit. She did not come to the breakfast. It was for Wellington MPs but she was obviously far too busy to attend a breakfast like that and it would have been useful. In fact I do not think there were any Labour members at the breakfast which just shows how contemptuous they are of the whole energy sector. They do not do anything at all to plan for the growth we need if we are to build a strong economy and have a reliable reasonably costed source of energy. This Minister has done nothing to provide that for this country.