Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the National Party as and as the member of Parliament for the North Shore on the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill second reading. I must say listening to the contributions from prior speakers—and very brief many of them have been—I wanted to spend a little bit of time that I have just giving you a little bit of context in regards to where we stand on this bill. National oppose this bill. I think it's important to articulate our reasons why we have taken that position but I think as we have heard this evening from the Hon Gerry Brownlee before in terms of the context that this legislation is built on what would be referred to as a failed review by the Minister. In effect legislation in this bill is taking us back to the future in regards to where we were pre-2010 and the legislation that was put in place. In effect this bill will provide unprecedented powers to the Minister over and above the Electricity Authority that is in place to provide oversight in terms of that system. The challenge always in regards to when the Minister or any Minister has the ability to come in and start interfering and overriding in regards to an independent body is that poor decisions get made. We've been pretty consistent throughout that our view is that the way in which this bill has been amended is going to not lead to the outcomes that are required. National strongly believe that consumers particularly small businesses and households should be able to achieve affordable energy costs. It's critically important in terms of productivity and for economic growth in terms of our industry across the country. But as we've said giving the Minister the power to be able to set up and in effect establish more bureaucracy while completely aligned in terms of the modus operatus" of this Labour Government does not derive value in terms of the people of this country in regards to more red tape more compliance and more bureaucracy and as a result more cost on those businesses. Of course as we know more cost on business flows through to consumers. I think one of the aspects of this bill—it was mentioned before—was I think clause 11 around the establishment of a consumer agency. Generally obviously consumer voice and the input of consumers in terms of co-design and that—I mean that's all sensible stuff. But the reality here is another layer of bureaucracy which will simply only add cost in terms of the consumers around affordable energy. And that's really disappointing because Kiwis across this country particularly the squeezed middle at the moment are really struggling under the burden of cost and the inflationary impacts that have resulted as a result primarily of basically a Government that is just out of control in regards to its spending and doesn't seem to have any ability to be able to rein that in. That is a great shame because what we also don't hear about is the growing debt in this country and the fact that my kids and future generations are going to have to repay that at some point. But let's get back to the legislation because I can hear the Labours on the other side of the House. They're getting all a bit boisterous because they don't like me critiquing their performance but I'll tell you what there's not many that actually are other than on this side of the House critiquing their performance. But the reality of this bill is it's another example of Government overreach—overreach in terms of a sector that has a number of players within it. As we said we've already got an entity in regards to the Electricity Authority that provides and was put in place as a result of the existing legislation to be able to provide oversight in terms of that sector. And that regulatory independence which is so critically important from an independent body does not exist when a Minister starts to dabble in regards to decision making. It is going to be compromised. Compromising the independence of an independent regulator has a significant implication on all aspects of our country but in particular as I've said when you get that conflict in effect in play then that most of the time ends in failure and ends in added costs.I wanted to also refer to new section 44B in clause 19 which is in regards to where the Minister can basically amend the code and go over the top of the Electricity Authority at whim in terms of making changes and stuff like that. So that really takes out any of the independence from that regulatory body. It basically takes away any certainty in terms of that independence and that is a significant concern as well in regards to this. So National strongly oppose this bill."