Friend and foe attack Government over power

By AUDREY YOUNG, political editor

The Government came under pressure from friends and enemies in Parliament yesterday over the electricity crisis that threatens to disrupt power supplies this winter.

Energy Minister Pete Hodgson was mocked for claiming there were "much improved" scenario modelling systems in place.

And Conservation Minister Chris Carter was criticised for opposing the Dobson hydro scheme on the West Coast which would flood 250ha of the conservation estate.

Drastic targets were set on Monday to try to avoid disruption: 15 per cent energy savings in the state sector, and 10 per cent in the private sector.

Acting Prime Minister Michael Cullen told Parliament on Tuesday that a dry year had not been expected as early as 2003.

But Mr Hodgson told Parliament yesterday that the Government "has been aware of the prospects of a shortage since the end of last year".

He had instigated a review after the energy shortages of 2001.

"As a result, we now have much-improved scenario development and modelling, which, in my view, is still not good enough," he said to hoots of derision.

Mr Hodgson said the present problem was caused by record low inflows to the hydro storage lakes, not a shortage of new generation.

Mr Carter was subjected to the new Opposition tactic of many parties piling 15 questions on end to one minister.

Act MP Stephen Franks linked his conservation duty right back to power savings measures: "Does he think that the business closures, job losses and public-spirited elderly folk shivering in the dark should not be relevant to his discretions over the use of a hydro scheme of a couple of hundred hectares of regenerating kahikatea, broom and gorse?"

Mr Carter: "I have the privilege of being the Minister of Conservation and I have the responsibility ... to be an advocate for the conservation estate which is something that is very fundamental to the whole ethos of being a New Zealander.

"I am not prepared to see that estate die a death by a thousand cuts."

Gordon Copeland, of the more friendly United Future Party, said information he had seen suggested supply shortages would continue to 2005. And he laid a large part of the blame with the Conservation Act 1987.

The Department of Conservation controlled 33 per cent of all New Zealand's land, lakes and rivers and the boards governing them had "virtually veto powers".

The standard response to any approach by companies for new hydro schemes was no.

He believed it related to hydro schemes centred on the Rotorua Lakes, the Mohaka, Motu and Raukokoe Rivers in the North Island and to Karamea, Ngakawau and Dobson in the South Island.

It may be just the tip of the iceberg. "All of this amounts to a major systemic problem. It is unbalanced and unacceptable.

"I have asked myself how this scandalous and serious situation can have been allowed to develop under successive Governments. It is because we have been burning Maui gas like there is no tomorrow."