Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:608;Page:5298] 
3.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in the Minister of Energy; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes because he is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How can the Prime Minister continue to express confidence in a Minister who presided over a view of the electricity industry that clung to the free-market model which led to a governance board made up solely of industry players who have ignored national requirements failed to reward financially savers of electricity or to provide an appropriate degree of regulation and failed to embark on any plan for longer-term development of supply capacity; or is it the case that as long as one works hard and is diligent one could be a prize fool in a job and still have the Prime Minister’s confidence? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The present market model is certainly flawed. It will undergo extra change to ensure that stand-by generation can be in place. 
Hon Bill English 
: Given that the Prime Minister has said the electricity market is flawed which of her two policies are we to believe: the one she announced a month ago when she said that the market was seriously flawed and had to have significant change or the one she announced yesterday when she said that it would largely stay in place? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: There will be significant change to the model to ensure that stand-by generation can be kept aside so that if we strike exceptionally dry years like this one people will not be asked again to make the sacrifices they have been asked to make. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Why does the Prime Minister have confidence in the Minister of Energy and why does she blame the market model when it is a fact that the Government owns 100 percent of transmission capacity and 70 percent of generating capacity when it is the Government that is stopping schemes like the Dobson hydro scheme from going ahead and when this Minister of Energy by a simple instruction to the State-owned generators could have required them under the statement of corporate intent to build this stand-by generation; how can she say that it is a market failure when the Government owns it; and how can she say she has confidence in the Minister of Energy when he has failed to give those instructions? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Prime Minister can answer two of those three questions. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The present market model does not encourage generating companies to generate for a margin of security of supply and that is what the changes will address. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Prime Minister’s continued confidence in the Minister of Energy a further example of her clear lack of judgment when it comes to weak Ministers or will her Government continue to blame its energy failings on the weather or previous Governments? When on earth will the buck stop with her office? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The fact is that the weather and previous Governments have a great deal to do with it. We cannot do much about the weather but we can do something about Max Bradford’s mess. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave of the House to table the answer to a parliamentary question in which the Minister of Energy said some 2000 extra megawatts of capacity are planned to come into the system in the next short while. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that. Is there any objection? There is.