Copeland Gordon: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Copeland Gordon: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:608;Page:5904] 
4.  
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
 to the  
Minister of Energy 
: Has the Government received any reports from TransPower New Zealand Limited regarding a need to upgrade the electricity transmission lines that comprise the national grid? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Transport) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Energy 
: Yes. Transpower’s business is the maintenance of the national grid so it produces considerable information on investment requirements such as its asset management plan. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Is the Minister concerned that without an urgent upgrade to the transmission lines many regions could suffer electricity supply problems in the near future; if he is concerned how would such an upgrade—estimated by some to cost as much as $1 billion—be paid for? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: On behalf of the Minister: yes I am concerned about that matter. One of the problems in the past is that the market system has not been able to sort out what investments should be made and who should pay for them. The recently announced Electricity Commission will fix that. 
Darren Hughes 
: How will the decisions announced yesterday about the Electricity Commission help investment in the national grid? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: On behalf of the Minister I reply: the commission will be responsible for establishing as a high priority a decision-making process in transmission pricing methodology that will enable necessary investment in the national grid to proceed. Under the current market arrangements as I have said there is no agreement in the industry about who is responsible for making those decisions about new transmission investments and who should pay. As I said the Electricity Commission will fix it. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Given that the Government has sat by for 4 years and seen Transpower argue that it is not responsible for new transmission lines where there is new generation or new need why does the Minister believe that this commission without specific statutory authority to do so will be able to make any difference at all? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: In fact for a number of years the industry was calling for self-regulation. It did not work. That is why in the interests— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: They are Government SOEs. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes and in the interests of all New Zealanders being able to have hot showers the announcements were made yesterday. The important thing is that there will be legislative arrangements to allow for the announcements that were made yesterday to be implemented. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Today is a very unusual day—we know. There are a lot of Ministers not here or not able to answer their questions today so we are getting quite a number of transfers. But there is a point at which the Opposition’s right to question a Minister is completely abused and that point is when a Minister who is answering a transferred question simply does not know what he is talking about. I would like to seek leave— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member can seek leave but so far he has not raised a point of order. He can now seek leave. What does he want to seek leave to do? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member is on a point of order. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes. What I want to say to you is that you can stand up and tell me that I am not making a point of order but the reality is that the Standing Orders require the House to behave always in an orderly fashion. They also require that the House is a place of relevance and that in question time there is an opportunity for Opposition parties to put Ministers under some scrutiny. 
 I suggest that that concept of the Standing Orders becomes abused when we get a Minister who simply does not know what he is saying and has no idea of the question that is being asked of him. For him to answer a question— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will please be seated. He has gone on for far too long. The member has made his point. I adjudge that the Minister did address that particular question as he did the previous two. Does the member want to seek leave for something? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes I do. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well please seek it now. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave for this question to be held over until the Minister of Energy can answer it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave has been sought for the question to be held over. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Did the Minister read the reports from Transpower to the Minister of Energy following both the 1999 and the 2002 general elections and did the Minister of Energy ever read the report to the Minister of Energy of June 2000 on the inquiry into the electricity industry; if so why on earth did he not heed the recommendations on what was required for Transpower which could have averted the current crisis we are facing? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: On behalf of the Minister I can say that the Minister most assuredly did read those reports and the point— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Did he understand them? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes he did understand them. He understands them better than that member who says the solution is more market. He is the only person in New Zealand virtually who believes that somehow the market is going to solve the cold showers and blackouts in New Zealand. What the Minister announced yesterday was a comprehensive plan to get the problem of capacity resolved by setting aside some capacity. The vast majority of people now in New Zealand will be proud of the fact that we are finally resolving the problem. More market ain’t going to do it and as long as the ACT party keeps doing that it will always be in Opposition. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That answer was too long. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I seek leave of the House to table the report to the Minister of Energy commissioned by the Minister on the inquiry into the electricity industry of June 2000 with reference to the recommendation for transmission calling for more market. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Has the Minister seen reports from Orion the Christchurch lines company that show it has managed to defer an $80 million transmission upgrade and postpone $100 million in other expenditure through cost-effective demand management and what steps is he taking to ensure that Transpower takes a similar approach throughout the country? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I am sure that the Minister has read those. Of course demand management is an important aspect of Government energy policy. The problem is though that it does not resolve the dry-year problem we are facing at the moment. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Is the Minister aware that one of the other major impediments to upgrading the national grid transmission lines is that under the Resource Management Act Transpower has to seek the consent of every local authority the lines run through from one end of the country to the other and that an objection by just one of them can derail the whole process; if so does he have plans to address this situation? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I am aware that there are some issues with the Resource Management Act. The Minister for the Environment is currently looking at a range of issues to do with this but I think it is fair to say that even under the current arrangements a lot of new generation has been approved under the legislation that some people are criticising. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Minister stand by his answer to the Hon Ken Shirley today when he said that the Government announcement yesterday had fixed the problem of blackouts and cold showers for New Zealand; and does that mean that there will be no such thing and the crisis is all over this year? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: One of the things that New Zealanders have been asking for is a solution to the problem and the Government is confident that the problem of capacity particularly in dry years and the inability to be able to plan for that will be resolved by the announcements that were made by the Minister yesterday. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. He may well have addressed the question by your ruling but the question was specifically about this year and we never got an answer. The public would like to know. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: All I can say is I heard him say twice that he was confident the problems had been resolved. I would have thought that was addressing the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Supplementary question Jeanette Fitzsimons. 
Peter Brown 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am sorry; I would have given Mr Peter Brown one. 
Peter Brown 
: This is a very important question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Does the member want a question? 
Peter Brown 
: I want a point of order. I want to point out to the Minister that he has said something quite different today from what his Minister said yesterday. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Would the member please ask the question. He has the opportunity; he has not had a question yet. 
Peter Brown 
: The Minister has told this House— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Would the member start with a question. 
Peter Brown 
: I am not asking a question. I have a point of order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No that is a way of getting extra work. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am not sure whether you can do anything about this—and I will try to put it more briefly than Mr Brownlee—but we do have a problem. We have an acting Minister and we have to assume—as an exercise so to speak—that he knows everything the Minister knows yet he is giving us answers that are contradictory. He has actually made an attack on me saying that no one is asking for more market. I picked up the report and it actually states that part of the problem is that Transpower does not face effective competition. It is quite clear to me that the acting Minister—[ 
Interruption 
] The Minister may have but he clearly has not read this report. I think that the Government should put this question and the next one to the Minister of Energy on to a day when the Minister of Energy has returned. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Let us put it this way: we put the question of leave to the House and the leave was denied. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Is the Minister aware that the transmission lines supplying the West Coast are already running close to full capacity and will have to be upgraded before the region is left without electricity all together; and is he also aware that such an upgrade will mean electricity pylons will have to cross the Department of Conservation estate whereas the region’s electricity needs could be serviced by the proposed Dobson hydro scheme and the surplus exported on existing lines to the rest of the nation? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: On behalf of the Minister: yes I am aware that there is transmission loss. It is just a by-product of the transmission system. Of course what has to be weighed up are the long-term needs of energy versus some of the environmental implications which the member has raised. The Government is actually currently addressing those kinds of issues. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That answer was very interesting but it bore no resemblance to the question that was asked. The question was quite clear. It asked: did the Minister know that the West Coast line was near capacity—that has nothing to do with transmission loss—and did he also know that if the Dobson project went ahead it would not need to be upgraded. Instead we were told an interesting scientific fact that there is energy loss every time it goes over a transmission line. That is not an answer. It is not even an attempt at an answer. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not correct. He did address the question; he did not satisfy the member but the answer is not going to always. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That may all sound well and good and fine except that this House has been asked twice for leave to have a Minister namely the Minister of Energy answer questions that this Minister clearly cannot and both times his colleagues have declined that request which would sound to be reasonable and fair in that case. This Minister should have to sustain a whole lot of questions to determine whether he is fit to do the job at all. Otherwise we are just wasting Parliament’s time. They were asked fairly: how about we put it off for the next time the Minister is here and both times in their rabid fashion they declined it. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: The facts are simple. The members have asked the questions; the Minister has provided satisfactory answers. You have ruled— 
Peter Brown 
: Look at the  
Hansard 
! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This is a point of order not questions and answers. 
Peter Brown 
: Well we have to get something sensible. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is Mr Brown’s final warning—or he will go. I said that during a point of order no one comments and that includes him. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: You have ruled Mr Speaker that the Minister has addressed the questions. There the matter must end. Members cannot relitigate your rulings. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: All I can say is that any member is entitled to seek leave and they have and the leave has been denied and that is also entitled to be done. 
Peter Brown 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I wish to point out to this House that it is a serious situation that we are in in this country. The Minister of Transport in all sincerity has given an answer today but it is totally in conflict with what the Minister of Energy said yesterday. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is a matter of opinion and that is not a point of order. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can you clarify this for us. Does a Minister answering a question in the House speak for the Government? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Yes he does. He has a range of information given to him on behalf of the Minister’s office and of course the Government has to stand by the answers given. The member I think was well aware of that fact. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Is the Minister aware that economic growth has continued in Christchurch while peak electricity demand has stayed constant thanks to demand management efforts by Orion and that in its own words prices are lower and resource use is more efficient; and what is he doing to encourage a similar energy-efficiency culture on the West Coast? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I am certainly aware of economic growth in that particular part of the country. I am not particularly aware of the correlation the member raises but I am aware of the point she is making about energy efficiency and economic growth. The Government as the member knows has a comprehensive plan for energy efficiency.