Jones Shane: Electricity Industry Bill — In Committee 
Jones Shane: Electricity Industry Bill — In Committee 
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Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 These speeches are focused on Part 2 of the Electricity Industry Bill unlike the earlier contribution which was both unwise and irrelevant from that member residing in— 
Aaron Gilmore 
: Canterbury my friend. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: Otautahi. I will not repeat the foolishness of what he said in the sense that he is blaming all sorts of ills on the Resource Management Act. No if any applicant wants to dam a river and gain further access to what is rapidly becoming a Maori resource that of geothermal energy then the process has been laid out. We would not know that from the Maori Party whose members are busily lost talking about pearly shells on the seashore—the seashore that they will never ever own despite having misled our iwi—but I will say more on that at a later time. 
If any applicant wants to come forward and seek statutory consent I say that the process has been laid out. Indeed members on this side of the Chamber agree that there was worth in improving the ability of central government to handle consent applications that related to resources that might have cut across multiple catchments. However that does not overcome a number of the weaknesses in this bill. I will direct our attention to what my colleague Mr Parker was talking about which are the statements of Government policy. It seems to me that the Minister of Energy and Resources with his booming rhetoric left the impression with his colleagues that these changes would significantly improve the ability of industry participants to offer power in a more sustainable fashion and at a more efficient price. But this bill is inversely related to his rhetoric. In addition to that the legislation goes on to say that the Minister may request a review. Part 20(2) states that the Minister upon requesting a review “must consult the Authority”. That got me thinking about who would be on that authority. Who will be the individuals deemed fit proper and suitably skilled— 
Aaron Gilmore 
: Shane are you looking for a job? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I can assure the member that after the meltdown of ACT and the taint that will attach to his party the tail-enders on his list will be looking for a shovel to dig up the offal in Christchurch and he will be in the queue. I daresay that the level of interest he shows in this bill should be improved as he may be fortunate enough—in the unfortunate event that this bill is passed—to be looked upon by the Minister for State Owned Enterprises. 
The membership of the authority says that people must have electricity industry experience consumer issues experience and experience in business generally. Given that the Electricity Authority will be a pivotal feature in the new infrastructure it seems to me that this may be an important issue for the Minister. Labour would not use this process because we would repeal this wretched legislation. We would not allow this legislation to continue. It has been brought into this House on the strength of loud rhetoric but it changes nothing in terms of the underlying causes. Those causes are causing a great deal of discontent amongst the voting public whether they be of a manufacturing or a residential nature. 
When the Minister of Energy and Resources makes a request for a review he or she—whoever it is; it is unlikely to be the current Minister for much longer—must consult the authority. Will the authority have staff or a governance board that will be capable of pointing out the obvious foolishness as we have seen earlier in terms of this Minister and what he has tried to do? Will it be independent? No the legislation sets up a seemingly independent board but this board can be crushed on a whim—driven no doubt by politics or vested interests—that may have set upon the Minister. Although the Minister may consult the authority that Minister will get his or her way. How will the authority carry out any level of independence if indeed the actual members who are on the authority are not independent? Therein lies the difficulty with this restructuring because several organisations will require appointees. 
We have a history where people with conflict of interests have riddled this sector. That is why as I said earlier I personally look forward to the day where we no longer have this failed model of competition the constant gouging of monopoly rents and the ongoing calls from the ACT Party discredited though it may be. However I must say that the member from the ACT Party who sits in the Chamber this evening Heather Roy is not a discredited member. She is proof that her party members should stop reading books by Frederick Forsyth and should start watching  
Kill Bill 
 because in that movie the blonde came back. 
I ask how independent the authority will be and what sorts of qualities this board of governors will show. Although it will be necessary for the Minister to seek appointees we have to reflect on a deep concern that the direction this organisation will head in will depend on the blend and mix of skill of the appointees. If there is absolutely no one on the board who is either intellectually strong enough or capable of being a good advocate for mitigating measures in relation to carbon footprints fairness and sustainability measures then we will have the same tired group of people who see these energy companies as their private playground. In that sense we will not see an improvement in either price or sustainability. As members of the Committee said earlier that is why a great opportunity has been squandered here. 
I will carry on—perish the thought that anyone should think that Labour had not studied this bill to an exhaustive degree—by referring to clause 22 which pertains not to the Security and Reliability Council but rather to advisory groups. I imagine that the advisory groups will include people who have a genuine and longstanding concern about the quality of the resources that we are continually drawing upon. It will also increase the importance for Maori groups—iwi and indeed other Maori environmental organisations—to pay close attention. They are unlikely to be considered an advisory group. Quite frankly if our colleagues in the Maori Party had not been surfing on the seabed and foreshore and had focused on this incredibly important area of the development of our Maori people—the utilisation of those natural resource groups which are used for energy generation purposes—then we would have seen a specific reference regarding those hapu and those iwi whose territories are proximate either to the geothermal fields or to the rivers and lakes. Of course I would have included the wind in that list but it is being consumed by the current Minister of Energy and Resources. 
The absence of any of those Maori groups shows not only that there was delinquency and neglect on the part of our Maori colleagues in the Maori Party—and none of that comes as a great surprise to us—but also that these advisory groups are likely to be rendered useless and marginalised. There is no guarantee for the people who treat stewardship the environment and the connection between tangata whenua and their historical resources as their primary raison d’être. Those people have been written out of the script. They ought to have been included explicitly here. There lay an important distinction between our approach to energy policy and the Government’s approach. We suffered no doubts and there was no cavil on our side as to whether there should be a marriage between hard economic decision-making and broad sustainability considerations. That lay at the pith of the approach that we brought to natural resource management especially towards the end of that great reign of energy policy. It may be said that these groups the tangata whenua etc. can fit in in a generic sense but it is very important that it goes on record that the architects have failed.