The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission's released a report showing how funding from the 2019 Wellbeing Budget has been spent. 

It shows 92% of the $1.9 billion has been spent or committed. 

There's around $163 million that is unspent, and almost $62 million was set aside for capital works. 

Chief Executive Karen Orsborn says they know there's a high degree of public interest in the funding, so they wanted to make that information available. 

She says 57% —1.1-billion— went to health, and $800 million went to other government agencies.

Orsborn told Kerre Woodham that they’ve heard from people who have been using the services, as well as those in the sector, that the money has made a real difference. 

LISTEN ABOVE

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission's released a report showing how funding from the 2019 Wellbeing Budget has been spent.  
It shows 92% of the $1.9 billion has been spent or committed.  
There's around $163 million that is unspent, and almost $62 million was set aside for capital works.  
Chief Executive Karen Orsborn says they know there's a high degree of public interest in the funding, so they wanted to make that information available.  
She says 57% —1.1-billion— went to health, and $800 million went to other government agencies. 
Orsborn told Kerre Woodham that they’ve heard from people who have been using the services, as well as those in the sector, that the money has made a real difference.  
LISTEN ABOVE

Join Kerre Woodham one of New Zealand’s best loved personalities as she dishes up a bold, sharp and energetic show Monday to Friday 9am-12md on Newstalk ZB. News, opinion, analysis, lifestyle and entertainment – we’ve got your morning listening covered.

Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Karen Orsborn: Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission CEO on the report showing how the 2019 Wellbeing Budget has been spent

Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop announced yesterday what National had promised all the way through the election campaign. The government's new National Infrastructure Agency will be established this year, unlocking access to more capital for infrastructure and strengthening the government's private finance and commercial capability. So, from the 1st of December, Crown Infrastructure Partners is going to be reimagined and repurposed into the National Infrastructure Agency. It will be charged with acting as the Crown's shop front to receive unsolicited proposals and to facilitate private sector investment in infrastructure, partner with agencies and in some cases, local governments on projects involving private finance, administer central government funds and continue the work that CIP is already doing. 

And it all sounds terribly dry, but it is actually wildly exciting. You know, to have a plan, to have a vision and more importantly, to welcome private partners to help get things moving. I cannot overemphasise how different that is from the previous administration. They believe that government could do it themselves. They had no real interest, this is a generalisation, but they had no real interest in partnering with private enterprise to do much. They believed that government knew best. With this announcement, we can see that the government is looking to the private sector to help get New Zealand cracking. They're open to the possibility that the private sector might actually have some good ideas and might actually be able to do it better and to deliver faster. And I think this is a very good thing. 

I suppose it depends on where you are ideologically. If you believe that big government is best, that government can do it better (I don't know how you could believe that given the evidence, but none the less there we go, pin the colours to the mast), if you believe that that government has the answer to everything then you will look with a somewhat caustic eye at the National Infrastructure Agency. But I truly believe this is a step in the right direction. 

At the moment, what we have now, the Crown Infrastructure Partner is directly responsible for overseeing 46 projects that have come from the Infrastructure Reference Group, and contracts with third parties, handling a total project value of $2.4 billion including $1.3 billon from the government. Previously it's handled the ultra-fast and rural broadband rollouts, rural mobile, marae digital connectivity and the public safety network, it’s also now managing the Cyclone Recovery program of work. Chris Bishop said the National Infrastructure Plan would provide a 30-year road map, setting out priorities for investment. So, this is the most important, then this, then this, then this. There'll be better management of existing assets, and they'll ensure value for money on new projects. 

Chris Bishop plans to seek support from all parties in Parliament via the business committee to hold an annual debate on the National Infrastructure Plan to show areas where parliamentary parties agree, where we don't, and where there is room to compromise in the best interests of New Zealanders. Which is all very well and good, again, that was another campaign promise, Christopher Luxon said they would try and get cross-party support for the big infrastructure projects. 

Rob Campbell's written a piece in the Herald saying that's very well and good if you share the same vision, but if you believe firmly that the environment is the most important, that the Treaty must be upheld and the principles of the Treaty must be followed all the way through any decision making, then you're not going to have the same vision as somebody who says, get that road and just plough through the graveyards, and plough through the tapu sites and off we go. So it's going to be difficult when you have people who with competing ideologies to come to a consensus. 

I don't think it should be that hard. If you have got, and we've seen the feeder groups that that will assess infrastructure projects, so we've got the infrastructure reference group and then onwards and upwards, we've got groups that will sift through all the infrastructure projects they prioritise them - present them to government... surely if you allow Labour say, as the biggest opposition party, to have some representatives on the Infrastructure Reference Group, you leave it to an independent panel to say this is the most important - we need to get cracking on this one first. Otherwise, you do get the voice who shrieks loudest will get the most money. We don't want pork barrel politics where you buy votes by getting infrastructure projects put into your electorate. We don't want that. We want massive infrastructure projects that are going to take years to build to be assessed in order of importance and for them to be started not today, but yesterday. And for them not to fall victim to the three-year parliamentary cycle. It's too expensive and too important.

Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop announced yesterday what National had promised all the way through the election campaign. The government's new National Infrastructure Agency will be established this year, unlocking access to more capital for infrastructure and strengthening the government's private finance and commercial capability. So, from the 1st of December, Crown Infrastructure Partners is going to be reimagined and repurposed into the National Infrastructure Agency. It will be charged with acting as the Crown's shop front to receive unsolicited proposals and to facilitate private sector investment in infrastructure, partner with agencies and in some cases, local governments on projects involving private finance, administer central government funds and continue the work that CIP is already doing.  
And it all sounds terribly dry, but it is actually wildly exciting. You know, to have a plan, to have a vision and more importantly, to welcome private partners to help get things moving. I cannot overemphasise how different that is from the previous administration. They believe that government could do it themselves. They had no real interest, this is a generalisation, but they had no real interest in partnering with private enterprise to do much. They believed that government knew best. With this announcement, we can see that the government is looking to the private sector to help get New Zealand cracking. They're open to the possibility that the private sector might actually have some good ideas and might actually be able to do it better and to deliver faster. And I think this is a very good thing.  
I suppose it depends on where you are ideologically. If you believe that big government is best, that government can do it better (I don't know how you could believe that given the evidence, but none the less there we go, pin the colours to the mast), if you believe that that government has the answer to everything then you will look with a somewhat caustic eye at the National Infrastructure Agency. But I truly believe this is a step in the right direction.  
At the moment, what we have now, the Crown Infrastructure Partner is directly responsible for overseeing 46 projects that have come from the Infrastructure Reference Group, and contracts with third parties, handling a total project value of $2.4 billion including $1.3 billon from the government. Previously it's handled the ultra-fast and rural broadband rollouts, rural mobile, marae digital connectivity and the public safety network, it’s also now managing the Cyclone Recovery program of work. Chris Bishop said the National Infrastructure Plan would provide a 30-year road map, setting out priorities for investment. So, this is the most important, then this, then this, then this. There'll be better management of existing assets, and they'll ensure value for money on new projects.  
Chris Bishop plans to seek support from all parties in Parliament via the business committee to hold an annual debate on the National Infrastructure Plan to show areas where parliamentary parties agree, where we don't, and where there is room to compromise in the best interests of New Zealanders. Which is all very well and good, again, that was another campaign promise, Christopher Luxon said they would try and get cross-party support for the big infrastructure projects.  
Rob Campbell's written a piece in the Herald saying that's very well and good if you share the same vision, but if you believe firmly that the environment is the most important, that the Treaty must be upheld and the principles of the Treaty must be followed all the way through any decision making, then you're not going to have the same vision as somebody who says, get that road and just plough through the graveyards, and plough through the tapu sites and off we go. So it's going to be difficult when you have people who with competing ideologies to come to a consensus.  
I don't think it should be that hard. If you have got, and we've seen the feeder groups that that will assess infrastructure projects, so we've got the infrastructure reference group and then onwards and upwards, we've got groups that will sift through all the infrastructure projects they prioritise them - present them to government... surely if you allow Labour say, as the biggest opposition party, to have some representatives on the Infrastructure Reference Group, you leave it to an independent panel to say this is the most important - we need to get cracking on this one first. Otherwise, you do get the voice who shrieks loudest will get the most money. We don't want pork barrel politics where you buy votes by getting infrastructure projects put into your electorate. We don't want that. We want massive infrastructure projects that are going to take years to build to be assessed in order of importance and for them to be started not today, but yesterday. And for them not to fall victim to the three-year parliamentary cycle. It's too expensive and too important.

Kerre Woodham: The infrastructure plan is wildly exciting

You could hear yesterday the sadness and the contempt and the disbelief in Inspector Tony Wakelin’s voice:

“Look, can I just say I thought that was disgusting. It really was. I mean, I saw some of the footage, it was filmed before emergency services arrived. There were close-ups of people deceased in the van and injured lying on the road. As I say, I thought it was horrible. As I said, a lot of my colleagues, that's not acceptable. You know, we should not be doing that, and I say to the people that are filming that, how would you feel if that was your family?”

Inspector Wakelin is the Counties Manukau Road Policing Manager, and he was speaking yesterday after the horrific, horrific road accident that saw three Samoan workers killed and three of their mates injured as they were all heading to the airport to return to their homes after a season of work. 

I spoke yesterday about the courage and the selflessness of those first people on the scene whose first instinct was to go and help do what they could to offer succour and comfort to the injured and the dying, and how brave they were. That was their first instinct, how can I help? What can I do? I cannot begin to comprehend how other people's first instinct was to invade the privacy and degrade the dignity of the wounded and the dying and take out their mobile phones and film them. And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, to upload the images to social media. A deliberate act, long past the time when shock or adrenaline might have caused you to do something foolish. You take out your phone, you start filming, you don't know what's happening, but then later you do. You look at those images and you know what's on them and you upload them to a social media site. 

How have people become so desensitised? I don't watch a lot of this sort of stuff.  I don't have a TikTok account. On YouTube, I don't seek out tragic road accidents, people dying - that is not something I do, so I don't know how you would find this stuff. But clearly people are watching it and have they become so desensitised by the violence and by the violent pornography that they see on social media that they think somehow this is normal. This gross invasion of privacy, this complete and utter lack of empathy, this disregard for humanity is okay. 

How do you get to that point? How do you even teach people basic human decency when their first instinct is not to help, but to film the dying for TikTok?  I assume they get no financial gain from this. They're filming for what, their own viewing pleasure?  So other people can see it? To what point?  I think that's the problem with everyone thinking they can be citizen journalists these days and with social media platforms acting as media outlets, there are simply no boundaries. No rules. No code of conduct or ethics. Even if you didn't grow up with them, when you trained as a journalist you were inculcated with what was expected of you. And I know there are many, many, many problems with mainstream media today, many, I totally accept that, and mainstream media are paying for the mistakes they're making with declining audiences and declining revenues. But no journalist I know would ever have filmed that crash scene. Ever. And our online editors that we have here would never have put that footage online, even if they'd been instructed to, which I can't imagine in a million years. I know for a fact that the young people I worked with would have said no, there's no way we're putting that up. Even if a mistake had made and it had been posted and people had quite rightly complained, we would have been censured and punished as a media organisation. 

There are no such boundaries, rules, censure for the social media platforms. How have people become so desensitised, so lacking in empathy that they can think that this is okay? Does it begin with the stupid pranky, slapping the wall with your hand and then comforting a baby so it thinks it's been hurt. I mean, what? How do people think that's amusing? Do we get desensitised because we hear of so many horrific stories of children and babies and other humans being so violently abused in this country that we think somehow, it's just par for the course. I'll just film it. I cannot understand it. I would love any insight you may have. For the record, I don't watch any disasters overseas. If I see that there's a disaster I don't look. When they say warning, distressing content. I don't go in there. And I'm sorry I'm going to judge if you find watching people dying entertaining, there's something really wrong with you.

You could hear yesterday the sadness and the contempt and the disbelief in Inspector Tony Wakelin’s voice: 
“Look, can I just say I thought that was disgusting. It really was. I mean, I saw some of the footage, it was filmed before emergency services arrived. There were close-ups of people deceased in the van and injured lying on the road. As I say, I thought it was horrible. As I said, a lot of my colleagues, that's not acceptable. You know, we should not be doing that, and I say to the people that are filming that, how would you feel if that was your family?” 
Inspector Wakelin is the Counties Manukau Road Policing Manager, and he was speaking yesterday after the horrific, horrific road accident that saw three Samoan workers killed and three of their mates injured as they were all heading to the airport to return to their homes after a season of work.  
I spoke yesterday about the courage and the selflessness of those first people on the scene whose first instinct was to go and help do what they could to offer succour and comfort to the injured and the dying, and how brave they were. That was their first instinct, how can I help? What can I do? I cannot begin to comprehend how other people's first instinct was to invade the privacy and degrade the dignity of the wounded and the dying and take out their mobile phones and film them. And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, to upload the images to social media. A deliberate act, long past the time when shock or adrenaline might have caused you to do something foolish. You take out your phone, you start filming, you don't know what's happening, but then later you do. You look at those images and you know what's on them and you upload them to a social media site.  
How have people become so desensitised? I don't watch a lot of this sort of stuff.  I don't have a TikTok account. On YouTube, I don't seek out tragic road accidents, people dying - that is not something I do, so I don't know how you would find this stuff. But clearly people are watching it and have they become so desensitised by the violence and by the violent pornography that they see on social media that they think somehow this is normal. This gross invasion of privacy, this complete and utter lack of empathy, this disregard for humanity is okay.  
How do you get to that point? How do you even teach people basic human decency when their first instinct is not to help, but to film the dying for TikTok?  I assume they get no financial gain from this. They're filming for what, their own viewing pleasure?  So other people can see it? To what point?  I think that's the problem with everyone thinking they can be citizen journalists these days and with social media platforms acting as media outlets, there are simply no boundaries. No rules. No code of conduct or ethics. Even if you didn't grow up with them, when you trained as a journalist you were inculcated with what was expected of you. And I know there are many, many, many problems with mainstream media today, many, I totally accept that, and mainstream media are paying for the mistakes they're making with declining audiences and declining revenues. But no journalist I know would ever have filmed that crash scene. Ever. And our online editors that we have here would never have put that footage online, even if they'd been instructed to, which I can't imagine in a million years. I know for a fact that the young people I worked with would have said no, there's no way we're putting that up. Even if a mistake had made and it had been posted and people had quite rightly complained, we would have been censured and punished as a media organisation.  
There are no such boundaries, rules, censure for the social media platforms. How have people become so desensitised, so lacking in empathy that they can think that this is okay? Does it begin with the stupid pranky, slapping the wall with your hand and then comforting a baby so it thinks it's been hurt. I mean, what? How do people think that's amusing? Do we get desensitised because we hear of so many horrific stories of children and babies and other humans being so violently abused in this country that we think somehow, it's just par for the course. I'll just film it. I cannot understand it. I would love any insight you may have. For the record, I don't watch any disasters overseas. If I see that there's a disaster I don't look. When they say warning, distressing content. I don't go in there. And I'm sorry I'm going to judge if you find watching people dying entertaining, there's something really wrong with you.

Kerre Woodham: How have people become so desensitised?

Yesterday the Prime Minister announced what we all know to be true, that we have an energy security crisis. 

We seem to have been having them for a while now, every winter there are concerns about brownouts. The Electricity Authority put it into plain English on their website - winter sees the highest demand for electricity, obviously, also when it's unseasonably cold in autumn or spring, that can cause high demand periods. The winter peak capacity reflects the ability of the electricity system to meet high winter demand. So typically, solar doesn't produce electricity during peak demand periods in winter because it's dark. Wind generation, which is 10% of New Zealand's electricity generation capacity and growing, isn't reliable because, who knew, but cool temperatures bring low wind speeds. So solar is out, wind generation is out during winter. 

That leaves hydro, geothermal, and thermal generation to provide the bulk of electricity during high demand periods. Geothermal already runs at near full capacity, so only thermal and hydro can ramp up and down to meet the winter peaks. But when you have a perfect storm, as the Prime Minister called it yesterday, winter peak capacity and a dry year, when low rainfall sees the hydro lake levels fall below average for an extended period of time, hydropower can't ramp up. There's no water there, they can’t push the turbines. 

So then we have to burn coal. Coal use soared in 2021 to the highest in about 30 odd years. Then coal use plummeted in 2022, reflecting the vagaries of the weather and the fact that some more renewables were coming online. But while solar and wind can store some excess energy using batteries, that's limited to only a few hours' worth of electricity, and isn't enough to manage a situation where rainfall is below average for weeks to months. So there are all sorts of solutions being explored to try and make up for those dry years during winter. 

I mean it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? We've known about this for a very, very long time. We are dependent on rainfall during winter, we use more electricity during winter. If there is a dry year, we have to get the energy from somewhere, and right now our choices are coal, coal, and coal. So we are exploring the renewables, but why are we still exploring them when we've known for a very, very long time that people are concerned about climate change, that the world is moving to renewables. Why are we still exploring them? 

Chris Luxon says while we're exploring the renewables, we need to reverse the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration and take urgent steps to bring liquefied natural gas into the country to offset the energy shortages because our exporters need certainty, they need to know that the factories will keep running so they can sell our products, so we can make some money. Forgive me if this is all very 101 but this is what we need to know: we need to know that when we turn on the switch at the factory, the power will come on. And if we're concerned about burning coal, we need to have something to replace it. And we don't have anything secure yet, so the Prime Minister has said let's bring in liquefied natural gas, which other countries use to sort of level out electricity supply. So he's also looking at the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration being reversed. That's been in place since Labour came to power in 2018 outside of onshore Taranaki. 

The opposition parties, in a shocking revelation, are dead against the importation of liquefied natural gas, seeing it as just another fossil fuel. But we need certainty and security so what's their solution? There are a number of questions though. We may be open for exploration but would oil and gas companies want to come here? Especially if Labour goes ‘no, dead against it, we're not having a bar of it, fossil fuels are dead and gone’. So why would you come here, given the electoral cycle? Also, in 2012, Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company that came here to do a little bit of a looksie to see if they could make money out of exploiting oil and gas here, they pulled out. They got the license and the permit in 2010, they pulled out in 2012 because they said there weren't enough indicators for them to continue. All very well to reverse the ban, but would people come here? 

And on the renewables, when you have the four big generation and retail power companies recording their largest single year rise in earnings this year, what's that all about? If we are the majority shareholders, which we are, and we are in the middle of an energy security crisis, then why can't we push them into spending more of their money, more of their profits, into the renewables? Fast track it, get them cracking.  

This was along the lines of what Mike Hosking asked Christopher Luxon, the Prime Minister, when he was on this morning.

“You know we’ll keep an eye on the level of profitability, but they also need confidence to invest because we want them, and I know they will, to spend huge amounts of capital on actually, you know, doubling that renewable electricity in geothermal, and wind, and solar, and all the stuff that needs to happen. So as I said, it is about making sure that we're giving people confidence, and that's what the announcement was about yesterday, was to say to many of those international investors who want to do the offshore engineering solution for LNG implementation, who want to do exploration for gas, who actually want to know that can go. A huge number of the projects that Chris Bishop’s looking at on the Fast Track Approvals are people want to do renewable projects, but actually, the consenting times insane. It's absolutely insane. So let's just change the rules, make it a year, extend the consents, all that good stuff.”

 As a majority shareholder, and I know normally you wouldn't interfere in the running of a company, no, put those billions collectively of dollars of profits into renewables right now, and we'll make it easier as the government to fast track those projects you want in place. Chris Hipkins says there is already consented renewable electricity that could be built right now but these big gentailers are choosing not to build them because it's in their commercial interest to keep energy scarce and maximize profits, which would be economic sabotage if that is true. And you'd have to take that, anything I suppose, a politician says with a grain of salt, but if they are already consented, why aren't they being now? 

I have more questions than I have answers for you, so I am looking to you for the answers, those of you who know more than I! We know we have an energy security crisis. Chris Hipkins says that there are consents in place. We could get cracking if the gentailers want to. They have made squillions, so it's not like they're wondering where their next buck is coming from. They've made millions from us, we're the ones paying the price every single time for decisions made by these big companies and by governments. So get cracking with the renewables, government, do your work by fast tracking these already consented projects. They need to start. The gentailers need to start on those. Any that are still waiting for consents, we fast track them. Oil and gas exploration? Sure. reverse the ban, but is anybody interested in coming here?

Yesterday the Prime Minister announced what we all know to be true, that we have an energy security crisis.  
We seem to have been having them for a while now, every winter there are concerns about brownouts. The Electricity Authority put it into plain English on their website - winter sees the highest demand for electricity, obviously, also when it's unseasonably cold in autumn or spring, that can cause high demand periods. The winter peak capacity reflects the ability of the electricity system to meet high winter demand. So typically, solar doesn't produce electricity during peak demand periods in winter because it's dark. Wind generation, which is 10% of New Zealand's electricity generation capacity and growing, isn't reliable because, who knew, but cool temperatures bring low wind speeds. So solar is out, wind generation is out during winter.  
That leaves hydro, geothermal, and thermal generation to provide the bulk of electricity during high demand periods. Geothermal already runs at near full capacity, so only thermal and hydro can ramp up and down to meet the winter peaks. But when you have a perfect storm, as the Prime Minister called it yesterday, winter peak capacity and a dry year, when low rainfall sees the hydro lake levels fall below average for an extended period of time, hydropower can't ramp up. There's no water there, they can’t push the turbines.  
So then we have to burn coal. Coal use soared in 2021 to the highest in about 30 odd years. Then coal use plummeted in 2022, reflecting the vagaries of the weather and the fact that some more renewables were coming online. But while solar and wind can store some excess energy using batteries, that's limited to only a few hours' worth of electricity, and isn't enough to manage a situation where rainfall is below average for weeks to months. So there are all sorts of solutions being explored to try and make up for those dry years during winter.  
I mean it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? We've known about this for a very, very long time. We are dependent on rainfall during winter, we use more electricity during winter. If there is a dry year, we have to get the energy from somewhere, and right now our choices are coal, coal, and coal. So we are exploring the renewables, but why are we still exploring them when we've known for a very, very long time that people are concerned about climate change, that the world is moving to renewables. Why are we still exploring them?  
Chris Luxon says while we're exploring the renewables, we need to reverse the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration and take urgent steps to bring liquefied natural gas into the country to offset the energy shortages because our exporters need certainty, they need to know that the factories will keep running so they can sell our products, so we can make some money. Forgive me if this is all very 101 but this is what we need to know: we need to know that when we turn on the switch at the factory, the power will come on. And if we're concerned about burning coal, we need to have something to replace it. And we don't have anything secure yet, so the Prime Minister has said let's bring in liquefied natural gas, which other countries use to sort of level out electricity supply. So he's also looking at the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration being reversed. That's been in place since Labour came to power in 2018 outside of onshore Taranaki.  
The opposition parties, in a shocking revelation, are dead against the importation of liquefied natural gas, seeing it as just another fossil fuel. But we need certainty and security so what's their solution? There are a number of questions though. We may be open for exploration but would oil and gas companies want to come here? Especially if Labour goes ‘no, dead against it, we're not having a bar of it, fossil fuels are dead and gone’. So why would you come here, given the electoral cycle? Also, in 2012, Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company that came here to do a little bit of a looksie to see if they could make money out of exploiting oil and gas here, they pulled out. They got the license and the permit in 2010, they pulled out in 2012 because they said there weren't enough indicators for them to continue. All very well to reverse the ban, but would people come here?  
And on the renewables, when you have the four big generation and retail power companies recording their largest single year rise in earnings this year, what's that all about? If we are the majority shareholders, which we are, and we are in the middle of an energy security crisis, then why can't we push them into spending more of their money, more of their profits, into the renewables? Fast track it, get them cracking.   
This was along the lines of what Mike Hosking asked Christopher Luxon, the Prime Minister, when he was on this morning. 
“You know we’ll keep an eye on the level of profitability, but they also need confidence to invest because we want them, and I know they will, to spend huge amounts of capital on actually, you know, doubling that renewable electricity in geothermal, and wind, and solar, and all the stuff that needs to happen. So as I said, it is about making sure that we're giving people confidence, and that's what the announcement was about yesterday, was to say to many of those international investors who want to do the offshore engineering solution for LNG implementation, who want to do exploration for gas, who actually want to know that can go. A huge number of the projects that Chris Bishop’s looking at on the Fast Track Approvals are people want to do renewable projects, but actually, the consenting times insane. It's absolutely insane. So let's just change the rules, make it a year, extend the consents, all that good stuff.” 
 As a majority shareholder, and I know normally you wouldn't interfere in the running of a company, no, put those billions collectively of dollars of profits into renewables right now, and we'll make it easier as the government to fast track those projects you want in place. Chris Hipkins says there is already consented renewable electricity that could be built right now but these big gentailers are choosing not to build them because it's in their commercial interest to keep energy scarce and maximize profits, which would be economic sabotage if that is true. And you'd have to take that, anything I suppose, a politician says with a grain of salt, but if they are already consented, why aren't they being now?  
I have more questions than I have answers for you, so I am looking to you for the answers, those of you who know more than I! We know we have an energy security crisis. Chris Hipkins says that there are consents in place. We could get cracking if the gentailers want to. They have made squillions, so it's not like they're wondering where their next buck is coming from. They've made millions from us, we're the ones paying the price every single time for decisions made by these big companies and by governments. So get cracking with the renewables, government, do your work by fast tracking these already consented projects. They need to start. The gentailers need to start on those. Any that are still waiting for consents, we fast track them. Oil and gas exploration? Sure. reverse the ban, but is anybody interested in coming here?

Karen Orsborn: Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission CEO on the report showing how the 2019 Wellbeing Budget has been spent

In 1 playlist(s)

Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Social links

Follow podcast

Recent clips