Shearer David: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19184. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour - Mt Albert):I want to say that this is the first year I have not been to Fieldays. I have been to it for the past 4 years. I can tell you that the same thing happens to me every time I go there. Somebody will come up to me and say: “You know we in the rural sector always do better under Labour.” They always say that. I am telling you this is what people say. I say to them: “Well why don’t you vote Labour?”. “No no I still vote National.” I do not get it but anyway that is what they tell us.There are a lot of people who have been sitting here if they have not gone to sleep listening to the last two speakers and who are in front of their TVs waiting for that cold spell to come up New Zealand. They are thinking about whether they will have to turn up their heaters a little bit more in order to stay warm. A lot of them are thinking: “I’m not sure whether I can afford to do that.” The power prices they know have gone up 20 percent—20 percent—in the last 4 years under a Government that said it was going to bring those power prices down. That is four times faster than inflation—four times faster than inflation—that power prices have been going up.Here is the interesting thing about that. When Labour was in power—and yes I agree that power prices went up then—the demand for power was rising at an ever-increasing—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are actually on Vote Primary Industries.DAVID SHEARER: Are we? I thought he was talking about energy.Hon Nathan Guy: We use electricity though.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!DAVID SHEARER: So you want to put the motion do you?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes so the member has just lost a call unfortunately because we are on Vote Primary Industries and I think the member was—DAVID SHEARER: Can I carry on on primary industries in relation to energy?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You can talk about primary industries. Otherwise you have just lost the call because what you have done is you have actually taken a call. I am happy for you to continue but you must relate it to primary industries.DAVID SHEARER: The thing about these power prices going up is that it is affecting farmers right across the country. In every dairy shed in every processing plant these farmers are being affected by electricity prices going up at four times the rate of inflation. It is not just the urban areas; it is the rural areas. It is affecting the farmers who are the backbone of this country. They are being hit harder than anybody else. This is Economics 101. When demand falls prices should fall but instead farmers all across New Zealand throughout the rural sector are paying more for their electricity than they ever have before.Hon Simon Bridges: Let’s be honest. You wouldn’t have a clue.DAVID SHEARER: Do not interrupt me Mr Bridges.Hon Simon Bridges: Let’s be honest.DAVID SHEARER: Let us be honest? That would be a change—that would be a change—because today all we have heard is the exact opposite of that. Your Minister of Foreign Affairs stood up and told a whole lot of rubbish about what has been going on.I come back to the rural community. Farmers deserve to have transparency around their power bills. They want to know how much of their power being delivered is being charged to them from the electricity companies and how much is being charged to them from the lines companies. In that member’s area many of those lines companies are coming to people and saying that they are paying too much when it is actually the electricity companies in those members’ electorates in those rural areas that depend so heavily on funding.What have we got? We have got falling demand and rising prices that are hitting the farming community right across New Zealand. Sixty percent of our power is coming from hydroelectricity generated in some of those farming and rural areas—60 percent of power is coming from there. We have paid for those dams over and over and yet we are still paying far more for our electricity than just about anywhere else in the Western World.We are just asking for a fair deal—we are just asking for a fair deal. People are sitting at home right now watching this debate on television thinking twice about turning up their heater in order to stay warm and knowing that if they do their power bill will be through the roof. I feel for them because this Government has raised those prices four times faster than inflation at a time when demand for electricity is falling. If you know anything about economics that is absolutely wrong. Thank you.