Smith Stuart; Salesa JennySTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Chair. Just before I get into the rest of it I would like to point out that the Minister sort of dismissed the concern about wholesale electricity prices which is quite in contradiction to an answer to a written question to me published on 2 June that she is concerned about wholesale electricity prices. Perhaps she has short-term memory loss.The regulatory impact statement was quite an interesting damning report really in places—as has already been alluded to—but the Minister's power to make code it said will temporarily duplicate that of the authority and doesn't conform to the practice of independent Crown entities. The Minister's ability to regulate over the top of the authority is inconsistent with independent Crown entities' status. I haven't heard an explanation that makes any sense or that justifies that. Has anyone else? No one on this side has. She still hasn't explained it. I've asked questions about this before and she seems to be more interested in personal attacks than in answering questions—actually that's good for us so that's fine with me—but it would be quite interesting to find out what the justification is behind that. That would be really helpful Minister if you could come to that. But I do also want to go back to the point that she also hasn't addressed industrial electricity prices and simply dismissing it I think doesn't do her—she's better than that surely. Or maybe she's not. And New Zealanders deserve better than that.I also want to talk about Chapman Tripp's view on the Electricity Act shake-up published 10 September. That was quite interesting as well. It talked about: The expansion of the Electricity Authority's discretionary powers will introduce significant uncertainty into the sector as it will enable to Electricity Authority to effectively restrain market participants from being involved in specified services or activities."—as my colleague just talked about—"This has the potential to undermine existing investments and to deter future investment in emerging technologies and services. It also expands the Electricity Authority's role in competition policy blurring the responsibilities of the Electricity Authority and the Commerce Commission."—all points that have been raised in this debate and questions have been asked and not answered satisfactorily.The Minister also responded to one of my statements about our going down the path of Germany and Europe. This is the path they went down. This is exactly what I was alluding to and the impact of this on investment into the sector is significant. These things have a long germination time if you like. From when an electricity company makes its final investment decision or FID to the time their generation comes on stream can be quite long. The payback time can be quite long. So those companies are all prepared to sit back there and say "Well we'll take a calculated risk on our customers being able to pay a price that will justify our investment in this generation." But what they don't want—and it was alluded to by Simon Court before: that sovereign risk is now on the table in New Zealand because of the actions of this Government. So that puts everything at risk and this bill is just another straw on the camel's back of sovereign risk.Companies are talking to me about this all the time about their lack of confidence in making investment decisions because of the sovereign risk that is now perceived. I know from an associate that was speaking to an investment bank in the United States looking for funding for a project in New Zealand the bank told them "You just don't get it. The one thing New Zealand had going for it was confidence in stable and predictable Government and now that is gone." The one thing that we had is gone. This is far more wide-reaching than I think is appreciated and flippant comments from the Minister do her no service nor do they do New Zealand or our electricity sector any good service as well.Hon Dr Megan Woods: Madam Chair?CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I'll come right back to you Minister. I'll call on the Hon Judith Collins to ask her questions and then you can answer all of them."