The House: Parliament finds energy to debate power costs

This week, Parliament allocated the final hour of its week to debate New Zealand's struggling energy sector.

The debate came against a backdrop of rising electricity prices and strained production. While all parties agreed that keeping the lights on was important, they were divided over how to do that.

Other than arguing over legislation, Parliament provides several avenues for MPs to raise and debate issues in the House. The three most common are general debates, urgent debates and special debates.

Special debates allow MPs to discuss an issue that, while not urgent, deserves focused attention. Parliament's rules require at least seven hours of special debates a year. The business committee selects the topics, so there's usually broad agreement on their importance. They might highlight local electorate issues, a recent select committee inquiry, or a specific issue.

This time, the Business Committee decided that energy fits that bill.

Minister for Energy Simon Watts kicked the debate off by laying out the government's efforts to expand domestic gas supply, incentivise new generation projects, reform electricity market rules and diversify energy sources, in an attempt to reassure both Parliament and the public that these efforts will address the sector's challenges.

"Our electricity market is not functioning as efficiently as it should be. New Zealanders need to have greater confidence that the electricity market has strong regulators and that there is competition sufficient to deliver the affordable prices we all need. This government will not kick the can down the road on these issues. This government is taking action to ensure that power prices come down. We have a clear plan and strong, concrete actions already under way to address energy supply risks and to unleash renewables in order to bring down prices, to give households and businesses more control over their power bills, and importantly, to keep our economy growing.

"To manage New Zealand's dry-year problem and bring down power prices, we need reliable sources that can be accessed quickly and on demand. That is why this government has commenced procurement for an importation terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG)."

'Chasing rainbows'

Labour spokesperson Deborah Russell sought to clarify what the sector's challenges are, which she identified as a lack of certainty of supply, growing prices to consumers and the need to phase out fossil fuels.

"We need to make sure our electricity supply, our energy supply, is certain. In particular, we need to think about what's called firming, making sure that our system is robust. So that's a really important thing.

"But businesses need to know that their supply is secure. Households need to know that their supply is secure. Hospitals need to know that their supply is secure. So supply is very important to us. We have seen businesses closing because of that increase in power prices. We have seen jobs lost because of the increase in power prices. We have seen real hardship in households because of the increase in power prices.

"So not only do we need abundant power and readily available power, we need it available at a price that our businesses and our households can afford. So that is the second aspect that we need to think about when we're talking about energy."

The third challenge Russell identified - climate - was perhaps unsurprisingly the focus of Green MP Scott Willis' contribution to the debate. Willis adapted one of former Prime Minister David Lange's famous lines to criticise the government's push for more gas production, telling the House, "The future isn't with the fossils - those who keep on proposing that are doing our country a disservice. You can smell the fumes on their breath as they gaslight us.

"The evidence is really clear that gas production peaked in 2001 and has been declining since 2014, four years before the oil and gas ban. Oil and gas companies have spent billions and come up with nothing-talk about chasing rainbows."

The Greens and New Zealand First have sparred on this topic before, with the most vocal figure on energy for the latter party being Resources Minister Shane Jones. In Thursday's debate, though, it was Andy Foster who took the floor, directing criticism at Labour and the Greens' desire to move away from oil and gas.

"I do not believe what I have heard from the opposition. What Labour did… is they went for the virtue-signalling sustainability at huge cost to affordability and security. So every time you pay your electricity bill or your gas bill and it's higher than it used to be, you can say, 'Thank you, Labour!', because they contributed to that. Every time a factory closes and people lose their jobs, you can say, 'Thank you, Labour!', because they contributed to that. That is what the oil and gas ban did," Foster said on Thursday, amid a barrage of objections from the Opposition.

"People from within the industry tell me that was the greatest act of economic vandalism that this country has ever seen. And this is from a party that used to be a blue-collar party - it used to be a blue-collar party - that sabotaged Northland, closed down Marsden Point, sabotaged Taranaki-with the oil and gas ban-and it's still going."

Like Foster, ACT's Simon Court also used his speech to attack the previous government's record.

"We've made massive progress by repealing Labour's ban on offshore oil and gas exploration. That cost this country billions in dollars of economic vandalism, and it pushed us to burn more imported coal. The ban told the world that New Zealand is not serious about energy investment. It was a political stunt dressed up as policy, and New Zealanders paid the price, and they know who's to blame."

While both Foster and Court were united in their criticism of Labour, a potentially uncomfortable conversation is still to be had, as Foster and Court's parties remain divided over the broader question of privatisation versus nationalisation in the energy sector.

Te Pāti Māori did not contribute to the debate. You can read the entire debate in Hansard here.

RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk.

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