Politics Friday with Megan Woods and Matt Doocey: Electricity, police targets, Ayesha Verrall's comment

Published Dec 5, 2024, 11:05 PM

Today on Politics Friday, National’s Matt Doocey and Labour’s Megan Woods joined John MacDonald to dig into this week’s political news.  

Electricity prices are still rising – would ensuring businesses get a lower rate keep them from going out of business? 

Will National actually miss their police force target, or is it achievable in the 12 months remaining? 

And how about Ayesha Verrall’s ‘cooking the books’ comment against Health Commissioner Lester Levy? 

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You're listening to the Canterbury Morning's Podcast with John McDonald from News Talk ZB.

I always love seeing Megan Woods in the studio, but I especially love Meghan Woods well. I love having Meghan Woods in the studio today, especially to talk about electricity, given which is a former energy minister. Morning Meghan, Morning John, Morning, Matt. We politics politics right and Matt do you see the only cabinet minister from the South Island.

Do you enjoy having me and two?

John? Always love having you and Max Oh.

I had to elicit that from you.

No, that goes without saying, Matt, Oh.

I see brothers from another mother and me from here.

Cat.

What do you think of my brilliant idea of subsidizing electricity costs for businesses? This is after the OECD report this morning came out of five o'clock saying that electricity prices are a major impediment to economic growth.

I don't think we should be having household subsidized businesses. I think what we need to be doing is making sure that we're making electricity a whole lot more affordable for New zealanderiness and New Zealand households. Shifting the deck chairs and saying that we're going to have those workers whose jobs are dependent on the electricity and industries to have them paying higher power bills. I don't think is the way. What we need to do is make sure we are producing the cheapest electricity we can at the moment. There's a number of problems, but one of the problems that we have is that even though we can produce really cheap renewable energy from hydro and wind and solar, electricity is priced at the most expensive unit to produce, and that's burning coal and burning gas, So that sets the price for everything else, even though the others are cheaper to produce. What we have to have in New Zealand is way to store electricity affordably and renewably. So at the moment we store it in coal and gas, and that's what we use when we don't have enough water in the hydro lakes and the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blying. What we can unleash for New Zealand businesses and New Zealand households is far cheaper electricity if we find a way to store that renewably, and that is the work that I firmly believe need would be.

Done, which like Onslow would not have done.

It's with one option, John. And what the project we had underway was the New Zealand Battery project and it was comparing pumped hydro against something.

We called the portfolio approach, which.

Was looking at things like batteries using demand side management, time of use, all those kind of things. So if not pumped hydro, then what Unfortunately the government has canceled all the work on the New Zealand Battery project and the battery wasn't just ever a about long Lake Onslow. I really think that they literally threw the baby out with the bathwater on this one because there isn't the work that needs to be done. This is what New Zealand households need and what New Zealand businesses need and is it a problem for productivity?

Absolutely well, this is Matt Douci. This is what RBCD says. It's reported to our quite It says GDP growth remained weak in the second half of twenty twenty four, net inward migration that started to fall driven by a large exodus of New Zealand's GDP per capital continues to decline and a mid twenty twenty four was two and a half percent lower than a year earlier. A sustained upward trend in the future's electricity price is causing firm closures and exerts an additional drag on investment. What are you going to do about it?

Yeah, I mean fair to say we have a productivity issue and I think as that report quite rightly highlights, when you add cost onto business, you don't give them certainty to invest. And that's what they're saying. One of the biggest barriers for business is when they forecast the cost of increasing electricity to their business, they're not going to come into New Zealand and invest. And that's what we've had to pick up from the last government. We're going to have to relearn that recipe of how we actually take some cost out for business to make the cost of business cheaper for them. Now, if you're saying to me, would you pass that cost on, I'm looking at a picture behind you with a sand ad on China.

I think the gritch of Christmas. No, I wouldn't.

I wouldn't advocate for that, but you so clearly when we look at the issue around electricity generation and transmission, we need to get over the issue of consents. That's why we've got the fast track legislation. We need to give long term certainty to business around consents with the thirty five year consent. Obviously, the rama is a big issue that the last government failed to address.

That's all fine, this will.

But it's about giving business and this is the issue we're talking about now.

What this comes down to. This is a very simple thing. It's an easy thing for governments to do is tinker with the mechanisms and the frameworks without actually putting any skin in the game yourself.

No, I mean the role of government is creating that regulatory settings that business can go on and flourish. We need an industry lead response. We want them to scale up for generation and transmission. That's so allowing the regulator settings for foreign direct investments.

So capital can come an invent or of business. Is becoming too expense.

When you say it's prohibited, When you say in this industry led response, what do you.

Mean, Well, it's about private capital. We want private capital to be invested into the sector. We want to create the settings. But at the moment when private capital looks at our electricity, generation and transmission there's too many barriers, and then the cost of that for other businesses, they're seeing their electricity costs go up and they're not going to invest either, and then you get that spiral effect which impacts on the country's productivity.

Which is the position we're.

All just on that private investors from overseas and actually this is a real thing have pulled out on the basis of your oil and gas exploration revival.

I disagree without I'd say, quite frankly the opposite, because of that slogan airing and the ideological decision. It's actually scared capital from New Zealand. That's a sovereign ink issue because what happens if that investors think like term that a government will come in with very idological decisions and make cart blanche decisions like that they don't see certainty within the country. It's a sovereign incagh.

This is what's sovereign ink.

Well, it's about the whole viability of the country of investors don't see that potentially settings will be changed on them overnight. Who would invest in New Zealand long term? And that's the issue that we're facing now.

Megan's getting saw next. She's been shaking her head for about the last five minutes.

So I think what we're hearing from Matt is exactly the kind of thinking that gets us into this trouble. We can't just have this hands off. We'll just tinker with some regulatory settings. It's not just about generation, it is about storing energy, and it is time this government got the head around it and started some work on it again, because you can generate all the electricity you want, but you've got to have a way to store it for nights and for days and to hang on. Matt, you go, Matt, we had the work underway. You can't slt it in. You took away the fund.

That's all boring.

That is very important, But you're absolutely right, John. We have seen foreign capital leave New Zealand. We had people that were ready to invest in offshore wind, which is an incredibly important part of the generation mix. Some of the cheapest electricity that we can produce have left New Zealand. We're also seeing it put under more risks because this government, through the Fast Track, is granting offshore mining rights in Taranaki. That's one of the things that is driving them away. This government does not have a plan for how it is we're going to unleash affordable electricity for New Zealanders and they need to get one. Yesterday it was confirmed to us at Select Committee that's sitting on the Minister's desk still and he hasn't moved it. Along is the energy strategy. This was work we had well underway, and officials confirmed that there is no decision whether or not.

That will be project.

All right, that's negligence.

Maybe respond to that strategy is all very good, but problem is they just sit on the shelf as deployer actions, fast track consenting are going backwards. And Megan talks about offshore generation. We've got a bill coming to the House next year that will allow that. That's actually real change.

All right, he's leaving the country map because of decisions all.

Sorts of talk this week during scrutiny week about cocking the books and Health New Zealand. I was interested in Megan and this thing about Health New Zealand finance staff having to sign non disclosure agreements. What's it all about?

Yeah, So what we've had is that Health d zed once they presented their accounts to the Order to General have had to correct them. The chief financial officer has left and now the finance team are signing non disclosure agreements. Now, I've never heard of this across a public entity. In the thirteen years that I've been a member of Parliament, I've never seen that. It's highly unusual and I think we need to know why.

How does a non disclosure agreement fit in worth openness and transparency for example? How would that impact on that?

Well, I mean we need to know the details. We need to know what it is that they're being told not to talk about the fact that you'd be going into your finance team and saying, here's a non disclosure agreement. It's over and above your obligations as an employee anyway that you have around confidentiality and the things that people and professionals understand, and certainly accountants are bound by the professional standards that they see that the fact that you'd go in there with an n DA exactly what it is, they're not allowed to talk about what it is it's trying to conceal. I think this is something there needs to be a whole lot more conversation about, because the whole point about a public entity is that there is public transparency that we have things like the Order to General, we have things like select committees going over and looking at those accounts, and textpayers deserve that this is their money.

Would you go as far as say the gagging orders?

Look, I don't know. I need to see the detail. I need to know exactly what it pertains to. But as I say, this is highly unusual. I've never seen NDA's and you know I stand to be corrected. It may have happened in the past, but I can't recall a time that I've set in a Select committee or is a minister seen NDAs put onto finance teams.

Matt Douci, Did this come from the government or from the Head of Health New Zealand.

Well Health New Zealand's are independent, crowded.

Here we go operations. Is interesting.

I think the scrutiny week it's a chance for the Opposition to throw all their deflections out there and their conspiracies and the reality is we've got a health system and disarray.

Can you ask the questions, Well, I know we know all that, Matt, we know all that. Tell me something we don't know. Did the directive for it? Is Meghan saying it today? So you can't ask the question whether it came from the Health Minister or from the Head of Health.

Health Zealand is an independent crown entity.

Clearly a decision has been made of we take what Meghan said today on fate its value. I don't know the decision points behind it, but doesn't mean further information wouldn't be released. It just means for those individuals. Okay, yeah, we're talking about here, so finished.

Eighteen months ago you wouldn't have said this eighteen months ago in opposition, you would have said they told us they were going to be the most open and transparent government in his' yeal in history. And now you're saying, oh, old no, but.

You've already fallen into the trap, John, that trap, mate, Well hold on, let me finish. Why can't I finish You've already fallen into the trap that if the potential of this non disclosure agreement has actually stopped the information coming out into the public, maybe it was just about a smaller group of people unable to transfer that information before the Commissioner or the Chief Executive did as part of normal standard processes where accounts are presented to order to general because of course they are audited every year. I mean, these are standard processes. It is nda opposition jobs to actually, you know, create a bit of opaqueness and create a few stories for the media. But the reality is we've got a clean up job. All keywies know it. We've been left a huge stefficit in the system and that's what we're addressing.

And that's what came out all open.

Thank you, Matt, Thank you Meagan. Time's not on our side. We've got a lot more of It's.

That Scrutiny Weeks and Select Committees are actually really important. And I will say that whether we're in government or in opposition, this is actually Parliament's chance to hold the executive to account and ask questions on behalf of New Zealanders to dismiss that as conspiracy theories. And Matt, what I say then is that you need to come clean with New Zealanders. What are these NDAs about? Tell us? Because actually that what New Zealanders expect is a level of transparency around this kind of thing. And to just sit there in surmise what they are isn't good enough.

You know, you're misinterpreting because what I was saying Scrutiny Week is important. I've spent the week at Wellington as a minister, been under scrutiny. It's your interpretation of what's been said that I'm talking about is creating the consumtion?

Well clear it up, Matt. Are there other non disclosure agreements for finance staff in other ministries?

I don't have that information, John.

All Right, A couple of things to take off before we wrap up this idea or this announcement by the government yesterday, Matt Doucy to limit the amount of land that could be converted farmland converted to forestry. Great idea, but is there going to be a sting in the tail in terms of what the impact is going to be for businesses that up until now have relied on trees to offset their emissions.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's the crux of the issue.

John.

It was something we heard very loud and clear in opposition from our rural communities and our farmers, primarily that they felt the last government, through their incentivizing under the TES, had allowed large scale conversions for carbon farming, largely impacting on our ability for production in sheep and beef dairy as well, but also quite often could change the social fabric of some rural communities as it shifted to large carbon farming farms. So we've made those changes. We've capped at about twenty five percent for the ets. I think all it does is give a more level playing foot field and actually gives farmers and landowners more choice around their land use as well.

What is it going to mean though, for manufacturers and for businesses that have relied on emissions to offset, relied on the easiest and trees to offset their emissions, They're going to have to clean up their act, doren't they?

Well, potentially it will change the setting because what we're not going to have is just by default, massive wholesale farm conversions into carbon farming. And I think that would be detrimental not only to our primary industries, but just to the fabric of rural communities.

Meganwoods Rod Carr, going tough with the Climate Change Commissioner, said this week, we're going to get the sober alliance on pine trees. What's your response to the look.

One of the things that we have to make sure is that we don't just keep putting more and more credits into the emissions training scheme, and that's what planting more and more pine trees do so absolutely agree. We were making moves around how we kind of limit the number of credits and agree with the government sentiment around that. In terms of this announcement yesterday, I'm going to in late breaking and breaking news going to say, I need to look more at the detail of this. I've got some questions. So one of the things that it is allowing to do is existing farmers to still do on farm conversions and do planting. But what does that mean? How long do you have to own a farm before you could do a conversion. Can someone go and you know, buy a operating farm, own it for X number of months or years and then and I've bought it for the purposes of planting trees, but kind of wait it out and still do it. So I think there's a lot of detail we need to pick through. I think that agree with the sentiment we can't just keep planting trees. We need to think about the communities that it is the culture of some of those rural communities we're being changed. But I'm not convinced without looking at the detail, that this actually does what it sets out to do. This is complicated and detailed, ets working often these unforeseen circumstances in which he had Rod car at Select committee yesterday at the Environment's Select Committee, and he was doing some back of the envelope of how many trees can still be planted under these settings and.

It's still a lot.

So we need to look at the details.

All right, So you guys, you're going to you're going to stop banging on at Mark Mitchell for not delivering five hundred new cops by the end of next year and it might be six months later somewhat.

Because it's very easy in opposition to stand there and say what you're going to do. I think what Mark Mitchell was finding is that he is missing his target, that we're not getting those police right till the end of the term. Wind backed the election campaign and the months leading up to it, John about how they were going to be all these more cops on the beat.

And there we're going to be all of these new houses under labor.

And look, we we fronted up on that in terms of key we build, and we said we've got the settings wrong and that we pull we pulled back and we and we changed things around there. And that's what you have to do in government. Sometimes being in government is difficult. The fact of the matter is that Mark Mitchell and this government is missing their target.

On new cops on the beat.

That is not what the public signed up for and not what they voted for.

This reinforces my whole point to the earlier questions under correct it, correct me it.

I mean the public signed when it came to voting, policies didn't matter. People just wanted your government out, so it didn't matter. I don't think you can say they're voted for five hundred more cops.

No, Certainly law and order was a big issue. John and National promise that there were going to be more police. Now we're seeing that they're failing to deliver on their target.

I do see.

I just wanted to clarify people listening when Meghan says we're failing to deliver on the target. The target is to be delivered in twelve months time. It reaffirms my point in the last question around the interpretation and the misleading interpretation. Someone quite rightly said at scrutiny Week it was going to be difficult to deliver the target in twelve months time. There's still twelve months to deliver it. We need to deliver on teny seven hundred and eleven police officers.

In the force.

Five hundred of them will be new and as quite rightly it said, it was difficult. So we haven't missed a target. We are on track to deliver a difficult target. But I have all faith of Mitchell and this government says I should and I think we will deliver it. But rest assured to your listeners listening still twelve months ago.

So I'm going to be there, are they?

Matt, Well, you just told people that we had missed the target again, got the commission with interpretation.

What the Assistant Commissioner said was very very very challenging, and that when asked with an where the twenty twenty six was, was a was a more realistic time right timeline. That's what he said. It sounded like a far Anyway, we've got speaking for Mark Mitchell telling us that the original target stands and those police will be delivered. So we'll hold Matt Mark Mitchell in the National Party to two accounts on that.

One look forward to a bookmark and.

My proposition after Megan's contribution today, we actually need a scrutiny week for the opposition's comments to scrutinize them.

Well, this is part of scrutiny week. This is the Cristis branch of scrutiny. This is brilliant, it's right and will scrutinize you lot.

Receivers failing to deliver. The Other thing about that police target the money. The money has been siphoned off to pay for other things. Same, that's one of the things that they've got.

No, it's not the Christmas messages, but.

You've taken the money and you've paid for other of things. That's what is going to make delivery services, new police station.

Thank you both, Megan on things for your time today. Thank you, nice to see you, Nice to say up you. John. All right, thanks back next week. It is at least you're not running out like last time. I thought.

I thought you've done.

Man, I want to get off.

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