Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well the problem this bill tries to solve according to the legislative statement is to provide an effective regulatory framework for the electricity industry to evolve in view of rapidly evolving technology and the business models around supplying electricity from generators to consumers. The bill does provide the simplest systems to be codified for electricity generators and distributors to come to their own arrangements and I'll give you an example of the current situation. When I worked as an engineer on a landfill we generated 30 megawatts of electricity collected from landfill gas run through containerised generators which was available to sell to the grid. What we would have preferred to have done was come to an arrangement with our neighbours who ran businesses who could have used that electricity but the regulations at the time—and the regulations still make it difficult—meant that it wasn't possible to create a direct connect 14 ion between the generation from the landfill gas and our neighbours. So this bill provides a much easier pathway for that to happen for generators—people who produce electricity—to supply their neighbours. Look that's a laudable outcome and yet there are other provisions in this bill which are so egregious that the ACT Party will not be able to support this bill. We supported the bill at the first reading. We had concerns that we raised. We signalled our concerns about the creation of a small-consumer advocacy agency at the second reading and at committee stage and our concern around that is that the agency simply becomes a mouthpiece for Government policy.In fact our fears were confirmed just last week when the head of that agency who does wonderful work in her community and who appears to have now become a mouthpiece for Government electricity and energy policy claimed that an intervention by the Electricity Authority in a proposed arrangement between an electricity generator—Meridian; and their customer Rio Tinto was somehow a good thing for consumers as if people who specialise in human rights know much about the electricity industry. Yet that's what this Government has offered us: supposed consumer advocacy agencies unfortunately masquerading for the purpose of delivering Government policy.So the Government claims that a small-consumer advocacy agency would strengthen the consumer voice particularly households and small businesses. It says they struggle to make their voices heard and [to engage with and] exert influence over decisions [made in] the electricity sector." yet the committee heard evidence that consumers do make their voices heard: 400000 consumers changed electricity provider in the last year. There's more than 40 retailers to choose from and 400000 Kiwis decided to change provider. So if that doesn't allow consumers to make their voices heard what will?Well actually there's something else to support consumers and that's the utilities disputes tribunal. That's a free service funded by the electricity and gas companies which means that customers can raise a concern and they can actually claim damages and the disputes tribunal will award damages of up to $50000 or even $100000. So there's plenty of opportunity for consumers and small businesses who have a dispute with their electricity company to either switch service providers or take it to the disputes tribunal. ACT thinks that's a great thing and it should continue.Of course there's no justification for a customer to have influence as to what a company that invests tens of millions hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in infrastructure does; that customer has other rights though. They have the right to be fairly treated and to exercise their rights in terms of the Fair Trading Act and under the Consumer Guarantees Act and other Acts.Now when we asked questions of the Minister yesterday during committee stage it became apparent from the Minister's response to questions about the Electricity Industry Participation Code and the fact that this bill gives the Minister the right to intervene and rewrite sections of the code directly—not the Electricity Authority which currently administers the code but to step over the authority and directly intervene in the code that regulates the interactions between the electricity generators and their customers. We suspect that the Minister is seeking these powers in order to achieve other Government policy objectives whether they be social—of course there's a cost of living crisis. What Government wouldn't want to see energy prices go down? I mean they might lose the election if energy prices stay up and Kiwis are still doing it tough a year from now—of course they'd like to intervene.We also know that the Minister would very much like to see her policy around 100 percent renewable electricity to somehow be delivered although it looks not just increasingly unlikely but exorbitantly expensive. It's likely to cost tens or even twenties or even hundreds of billions of dollars; in fact no one can tell the Minister and the Minister can't tell New Zealand how much that wild aspiration for 100 percent renewables is likely to cost. So of course reducing greenhouse gas emissions 100 percent renewable electricity—they can't be achieved through any other policy means and it's unfortunate the Minister herself isn't available to respond today because she had a chance yesterday to make her case and she wouldn't.What ACT believes is that Ministers should leave electricity generators and their customers alone and leave them to come to their own arrangements about how electricity is generated and how they deal with their customers some of whom use so much electricity in fact that entire regions entire sectors—like Rio Tinto's Tīwai Point Aluminium Smelter which supports thousands of jobs in Southland—depend on security of supply and if a Government is going to intervene they need to think very very seriously about the consequences and not just be focused on next year's elections or the next opinion poll. The last time a Government tried to take direct control of and direct and influence the energy sector in this way was in the 1980s when a former Prime Minister the Rt Hon Robert Muldoon ignored the advice of Treasury ignored the advice of his own Ministers—some of whom went on to become founders of the ACT Party because they knew about good economics—and insisted that direct Government investment and involvement in electricity generation was the way to go. Now there's a fantastic book that came out recently by a gentleman called John Boshier who wrote this book Power Surge that details all of the terrible things that can happen to Governments to economies to communities and to business when Governments insist on intervening directly in the energy sector and in electricity generation. In fact John Boshier writes that when a Government takes a policy position in the market there is a high risk of malinvestment a waste of taxpayer funds—whether it's a bike bridge over Auckland Harbour that proved to be unfeasible or direct intervention such as building new mega-dams such as Onslow which is not too different from the Clyde Dam which went billions over budget and took years longer. I would advise the Labour Government members to read John Boshier's Power Surge. It'll be back at the Parliamentary Library soon—when I've finished you can get it out.Now those policies that this Government is pursuing in the electricity and energy sectors make people in the private sector very nervous about making their own investments. You only have to look at the Concept Consulting report into the green investment and decarbonisation initiative—the GIDI Fund—which makes the Minister of Energy and Resources Megan Woods dizzy with excitement every time she announces it. But what the Concept Consulting report found was that four out of five projects are a boondoggle: nearly $600 million of taxpayer funds wasted by this Government on projects that the private sector would have delivered for itself. But when this Government comes along with backups of taxpayer money to give away you'd be a fool to turn them down. But I can promise this Government and unfortunately all of those organisations which have got used to drinking at the trough that if ACT's in power that's going to stop.Now ACT stands up for consumers and taxpayers and we believe the best way to ensure affordable energy and security of supply is to retain the current objectives of the Electricity Authority. The statutory objective of the authority is to "promote competition in reliable supply by and the efficient operation of the electricity industry for the … benefit of consumers." It's right there in the Electricity Authority's objectives. That's what this Government wants to change. We've seen many examples where this Government has issued a dual mandate to regulators such as the Reserve Bank. It's turned out to be a disaster and that has politicised the institutions that we depend on. If you want to have a healthy economy and if you want our communities to thrive the last thing we need is this Labour Government intervening in markets directing investment and reaching over existing regulatory agencies to change things like codes of participation. That's why ACT cannot support this bill."