Court Simon; Woods MeganSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. So I think based on the Minister's response to the first part it's quite clear that the Minister wishes to take charge of the electricity market in New Zealand by directing changes to the code and that the concerns that ACT has about the role of the small consumer advocacy agency are now confirmed: that that agency would be the mouthpiece for the Minister.Schedule 1 which inserts new section 6 Regulations regarding Small Electricity Consumers Agency"—under this part the regulations allow for the recovery of costs incurred in the year ending 30 June 2022 even if the regulations come into effect after that date. That's because the Minister without waiting for this legislation to pass has appointed a person to act in the role of the small consumer advocate and that individual who's done wonderful work in their community unfortunately has become the mouthpiece for the Minister.Now we know that the Government has declared a 100 percent renewable electricity target. We know that the Minister shares the aspiration for New Zealand to decarbonise. Now when you consider the intervention of the Electricity Authority in the proposed agreement between Meridian which runs the Manapōuri power station and their client Rio Tinto who makes aluminium let's consider it in the context of other Government policy and how this bill relates to that. Tīwai Point is New Zealand's sixth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide. They are the sixth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide. And if you look the Government's other policies how they relate to this bill it's quite clear that the Government would prefer the Tīwai smelter to be closed and the thousands of jobs associated with that industry be lost. Of course we know what would happen even though they use 100 percent renewable electricity to make aluminium here in New Zealand. It's quite clear that that aluminium production would simply go to another jurisdiction probably China where they would use coal not free-flowing hydroelectricity to make it.So we think about the regulations concerning the small consumer—Tangi Utikere: Point of order Mr Chairperson. Thank you Mr Chair. It's very clear that what the committee is currently considering is effectively clauses 44 to 48 and the relevant schedules. The member who is speaking is well outside of the scope which seems to be a bit of a trend—CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): I'll just remind the member that the reason we have a Chair in the committee is to make those judgments. I thank you for your advice.SIMON COURT: Thank you Mr Chair. So coming back to the schedule and the regulations regarding the Small Electricity Consumers Agency it's easy to understand why industry participants including those who use electricity and those who generate it are very very concerned that this agency will simply become a communications mouthpiece for the Minister's policy rather than actually working on market-based solutions to make sure that consumers of electricity whether they be small business or domestic consumers get the best deal. We do know that 400000 consumers changed power company in the last year. We know there are 40 retailers available to choose from Minister. So it's not clear why this agency is necessary and if it is what the regulations that will be made regarding this agency will attempt to do.You mentioned Minister in response to a previous question the intervention—which the agency's current employee claimed was going to be of great benefit—in a deal for over 150 megawatts of electricity. That's a huge amount of electricity. The Manapōuri power station supplies 800 megawatts of electricity—800 megawatts of 100 percent renewable electricity—designed to supply exclusively the Tīwai Point aluminium smelter which uses all of that electricity. So I would like to ask the Minister: what will the regulations regarding the Small Electricity Consumers Agency do? What are they designed to do? What effect will they have? And will this involve the Minister intervening through the code and through this agency to direct commercial arrangements between suppliers and consumers of electricity?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): First of all I'd like to start off by reassuring that member that under nobody's stretched imagination would Rio Tinto ever fit the classification of a small consumer of electricity so I'd like to say that it would not be caught by these regulations at all. The member asked what the effect of these schedules would be in terms of regulation. It's very clear. It's spelled out in the schedules: the ability for this in terms of regulation is the ability to levy. It is not there at the moment. Of course this is being funded out of Budget 2020 out of some of the initiatives that we funded around energy hardship. I've already said in earlier contributions what the impact of that levy would be. It's been calculated to be the sum of around $2 per year for a consumer to fund that. But I'd like to stress that this is not a levy that is currently in place; what this bill merely does is provide the provisions for that regulation to be made."