Fitzsimons Jeanette: Budget Debate 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Budget Debate 
[Volume:608;Page:5933] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 We are in the middle of an electricity crisis and the Government has allocated a miserly $1.4 million extra to the one agency that could help us to solve it. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority is charged with promoting both efficiency which is technical improvements that will give us long-term reductions in demand for no change in output and energy conservation which is simply common-sense behaviour and wise use that can also save money and save us from the effects of this winter’s lack of rainfall. It is conservation rather than efficiency that can get us through this winter. There is not enough time to put in the energy-efficient plant that would have an effect this winter; that is what we need to do for the future. Rather it is energy conservation—the simple sensible things like remembering to turn things off when one leaves a room and the host of other issues that have been talked about—that could have an effect this winter and that the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority could be helping us to implement now. 
The Government has taken on board the need for energy efficiency. It supported my bill and passed it and I was pleased to work with the Government on that. The strategy that the legislation requires is in place and approved by Government but it is not being funded. At the same time the State-owned enterprises that generate and sell electricity are profiting from the high spot prices that have been charged in the market. How much they are profiting is not entirely straightforward. For example Meridian Energy has a lot less water to sell and low-price contracts to Comalco to fulfil but Genesis Power which has been running its thermal plant—which is not affected by the lack of rainfall—flat out for months and collecting high spot prices must be making a windfall. Last year those State-owned enterprises returned to the Government $100 million from Meridian Energy $11.8 million from Genesis Power and $19.2 million from Mighty River Power. This year the balance will be very different but we can predict that there will be some windfall profits. 
I call on the Government to plough those windfall gains into solving this year’s crisis through conservation and into solving future dry-year crises through efficiency. The Government can do that by funding the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority. We could have a bunch of experts visiting every big commercial premise in this city and others and working with its engineers to show it how to reduce its energy demand without being miserable without dropping production and without affecting well-being. The authority could do the same with retail premises. It needs to have the people on the ground helping people out there to make the practical savings that can keep the lights on and the water hot but that is not happening. 
If we are to have an energy-efficient economy in the future we have to build capacity. We do not have enough trained energy auditors and we need to train more. We do not have enough people trained in retrofitting houses. Of the new money $1.2 million is going towards retrofitting cold draughty damp houses and I strongly support that. But we do not have enough trained teams on the ground to do that and the quality control is not always adequate. If one asks for a solar water-heater to be installed one is very lucky if one does not have a plumber come along and put it in with the thermo-siphon working backwards using electricity to heat the sky. We need a lot more training right through all the energy-efficiency and renewable energy professions if we are to build a culture and an industrial sector that are capable of running on energy efficiency. That would be good for the economy would reduce climate change would protect the environment would be better for people’s health—because buildings are warmer and drier—and would create jobs and well-being. 
Members should compare that miserable $1.2 million for the retrofitting of houses with the $7 million that has just been wasted by David Caygill and the industry’s self-regulating Electricity Governance Board which is described very aptly by Saturday’s  
New Zealand Herald 
 as a $7 million flop. That board fell over on Friday and now has to be replaced by a Government-appointed board. We support the appointment of a Government-appointed board and a regulator. We have said for 2 years that that is needed but let us look at the money that has been wasted! 
Members should also compare that $1.2 million for retrofitting with the $1.2 billion—a hundred times as much as that—that is being spent on the next power station Project Aqua. I say that $1.2 billion could buy a great deal of energy efficiency which would make new supply unnecessary. The numbers are out of kilter and the balance is wrong. It is time that we started to fund the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy that we have so wisely put in place.