Finance Minister Michael Cullen has denied he ordered the Electricity Commission to approve the Auckland power supply upgrade, but says he did tell warring Crown entities to stop behaving like "males rutting" and start acting in the national interest.
Outgoing Electricity Commissioner Roy Hemmingway recently told MPs he
was sacked because he refused to bow to political pressure and bend the rules over the Auckland power supply upgrade.
Mr Hemmingway told the commerce select committee of a series of meetings with ministers which ramped up the pressure over the transmission lines upgrade in the Waikato.
Last year Mr Hemmingway put Transpower's plans for a 440kV line into Auckland on hold saying it was an unnecessary expense and cheaper options would provide security of supply.
That heightened already tense relations between the Government's regulator and state-owned grid operator Transpower.
In May this year Dr Cullen called in both the warring parties and warned them their reputations were on the line unless agreement could be reached.
Mr Hemmingway said he believed he should apply the rules, but ministers wanted him to stretch them to accommodate Transpower.
National MP Nick Smith alleged in Parliament yesterday that at the May meeting Dr Cullen had endorsed Transpower's plans and had said he would deny a meeting had ever taken place if asked about it.
Dr Cullen said the only truth to the allegation was that there had been a meeting.
"Its purpose was to bang heads together, given the stand-off between, and the bad behaviour, of both players," Dr Cullen said.
At the start of the meeting, he had told them he did not wish to hear any arguments for or against any particular proposal.
"The meeting was about telling both players to get on and solve the issue, not to play games with each other, as both were both publicly and privately," Dr Cullen said.
"I gathered at the meeting he (Mr Hemmingway) was not entirely listening to what was going on."
Transpower and the Electricity Commission had been told, both publicly and privately, many times they had to find a solution and end the "male rutting that was going on between them".
Dr Cullen said he would not apologise for getting the two agencies to act in the national interest.
Mr Hemmingway told MPs recently he also had a series of meetings with an increasingly impatient Energy Minister David Parker.
There were no overt threats to sack him or interfere, but it was clear his job was on the line.
- NZPA
