Groser Tim: Electricity (Continuance of Supply) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Groser Tim: Electricity (Continuance of Supply) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 23 September 2008. Volume:650;Page:19082. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 As the House knows National is supporting the Electricity (Continuance of Supply) Amendment Bill. We support it because its underlying objectives are obviously commonly shared around the country. I think there is a fundamental point of equity that all the parties agree on. One cannot allow a rampant marginal costing regime to apply even within metropolitan areas so why should it apply throughout more remote rural areas?  
The idea of ensuring security of supply is something that affects all New Zealanders. Of course there are some rather bigger issues than are dealt with in this bill which certain aspects of Government policy have raised concerning the actual long-term availability of supply but that would lead us into another debate with you Madam Assistant Speaker over the purpose of the bill so I will steer clear of that in deference to your very robust position on this matter.  
What concerns me about the bill is that it has an air of kicking for touch about it. It has obviously come up to a deadline in terms of the original deal done in the early 1990s of this 20-year grace period in the expectation that a fix would be found. No fix has been found and as various speakers from our side have pointed out a “kick for touch into the future bill” has been put into place in the last days of the Parliament to deal with a problem that might have actually benefited from more serious and systematic attention in the last 9 years.  
The bill does the easy stuff in terms of the definitions in it and I will not go systematically through that. What it does not do—and this is the nub of the point that Mr Brownlee our energy spokesperson was making—is deal with the real devil in the detail here about what the actual process going forward is. There is plenty of clarity around what I would call trivial aspects of the process; for example new section 62B in clause 4 states that the supplier must fulfil the obligations by giving notice outlining the proposal and must describe how under the proposal the consumer’s reasonable electricity needs will be met. This new section also refers to the public’s access to information and so on and so forth.  
The crucial point though concerns how this will be resolved in a fair and balanced way. All we know is that clause 5 which deals with electricity governance regulations states that the relevant section section 172D(1) is amended by inserting paragraph (9A) which states: “requiring any person who fulfils the obligation in section 62(3) by providing electricity by alternative means to use a specified pricing methodology in setting the price for electricity supplied by alternative means:”.  
That is a wide open loophole in this bill. That basically describes a situation at least on my reading of the plain language of the bill of an enormous lack of certainty into the way forward. It is relevant to the discussion of this bill to try to foreshadow in the light of recent energy price shocks what will happen to micro-energy development. I think most people accept that with the price of oil being very very low for a very long period of time we have seen these spikes in price primarily as a consequence of no investment in refining capacity around the world and frankly of a lack of economic incentive to develop much of the alternative energy resources right around the world.  
We in New Zealand are unusually richly placed in this area but the point is that we will now see literally trillions of dollars being invested around the world because there are trillions more dollars to be made out of such investments in alternative energy resources. Given the development of new technologies—and the miniaturisation of technologies will continue just as powerfully in the next 10 years as it has done in the previous 10 years—it is not implausible to take the view that there will be more cost-effective micro-generation facilities available through technologies such as those that various members in the House have mentioned—solar technologies wind technologies and perhaps all manner of combinations of technologies that we just cannot envisage.  
The price still remains the crucial issue for the consumer. We have not yet defined what we mean by the end of the line. Is it one consumer? Is it a group of consumers? We have not defined what type of caveats will be around the actual process of defining the price. I see a real danger here. In spite of all the formalistic protections in terms of giving due notice and so on and so forth where actually is the negotiation in this process? Where is the guarantee that consumers at the end of the line will not be forced into a position where they say to the supplier: “Well thank you very much for meeting your obligation to give a specified pricing methodology for setting the price but the specified pricing methodology that you put forward means that you’re putting us out of business.”? I really think that a little more work is required on this.  
But yes the bill introduced for this longstanding and long foreseen problem right at the end of this Parliament kicks for touch on the underlying principles. I am certain that we have not heard the end of this issue and that future Governments will have to attend to this matter with a little more rigour than has been the case with this Government over the past 9 years.