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Speaker 1: The government's calling on Labor Party to support what they're

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Speaker 1: trying to do to fix the electricity sector, including bringing

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Speaker 1: back oil and gas exploration. Now, the reason that this

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Speaker 1: is important is because as long as the Labor Party

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Speaker 1: threatens to bring that ban back when they're back in government,

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Speaker 1: the industry will not come back. Chris Hopkins is the

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Speaker 1: Labor leader and with us now, hub.

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Speaker 2: Sure, how are you and well, thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: Are you going to bring the band back?

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Speaker 2: And we said that we're opposed to the removal of

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Speaker 2: the oil and gas that you know, the ban on

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Speaker 2: new oil and gas exploration offshore, and we would reinstate

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Speaker 2: that again. We've got an abundance of renewable electricity opportunities

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Speaker 2: in New Zealand. There's literally thousands of megawatts of our

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Speaker 2: new renewable electricity generation already contented. We should be building

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Speaker 2: that now and we wouldn't have an energy shortage.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but they're not building it right, So we need

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Speaker 1: the gas, don't we Do you accept that we need

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Speaker 1: the gas?

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Speaker 2: But Humply is actually if you talk to the people

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Speaker 2: building renewable at the electricity, I'll say that the burning

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Speaker 2: of fossil fuelds is one of the things that disincentivizes

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Speaker 2: the investment to renewables. So what you got to do

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Speaker 2: is you've got to ask the question, if there's thousands

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Speaker 2: of megawatts already of renewable electricity consented that could be

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Speaker 2: built faster than thermal, you know, faster than gas side stuff,

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Speaker 2: why isn't the market building it now? What do we

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Speaker 2: do though, same because the market's broken. The market's prioritizing.

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Speaker 2: See when Huntly charges those exorbitant prices for peak electricity,

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Speaker 2: what that does is it actually drives drives out the

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Speaker 2: incentives to build new renewable electricity. It's distorting the market.

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Speaker 2: So we need to be making sure that we're dealing

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Speaker 2: with that problem because the electric if you're if you're operatingly,

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Speaker 2: your incentive is to just maximize the profit. The market

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Speaker 2: works at the moment. That the problem.

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Speaker 1: If people were in government for six years, why didn't

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Speaker 1: you see that the stuff was being built?

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Speaker 2: Well, if you look at it, there's actually been a

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Speaker 2: big increase in the last couple of years. But we're

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Speaker 2: making up for the fact that for about ten years

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Speaker 2: the market wasn't building. Now it has started building in life,

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Speaker 2: when did it start the last couple of In the

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Speaker 2: last couple of years, the last two years or so,

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Speaker 2: there's actually been a big upswing in the amount of

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Speaker 2: new renewable electricity generation coming on stream.

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Speaker 1: And what did you do to make them build it?

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Speaker 2: Well, one of the things we were doing was making

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Speaker 2: sure that it was consented, and you know, there's thousands

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Speaker 2: of megabats of it that has been consented. But actually

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Speaker 2: that we don't guess bad that the signals that the

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Speaker 2: government was sending and saying we don't think that fossil

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Speaker 2: fuels are the answer, actually helped to give the market

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Speaker 2: certainty to invest in the renewable electricity generation. What this

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Speaker 2: government are doing is by saying that they're going to

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Speaker 2: go back to oil and gas, they're actually saying to

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Speaker 2: renewable electricity producers that they don't think that that's the

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Speaker 2: way of the future. And I think that's in the

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Speaker 2: markets the wrong signals.

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Speaker 1: So what do we do when the sun doesn't shine

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Speaker 1: and the wind doesn't blow and we haven't got enough

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Speaker 1: water in the dams At that point, we need fossil fuels, don't.

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Speaker 2: We Well no, not necessarily, Well, what would we do?

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Speaker 2: The question, Well, the question becomes how you store it,

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Speaker 2: and how you use electricity.

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Speaker 1: And how you mealy and how do you store it.

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Speaker 2: You can do we can do things like pump hydro

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Speaker 2: the current government, are you talking about.

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Speaker 1: That stupid Lake Onslow idea?

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Speaker 2: Again, lake Consol was one vary into pump hydro, but

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Speaker 2: pump hydro is actually used quite commonly around the world

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Speaker 2: as as a way of storing electricity.

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Speaker 1: This is not listen. I mean, this is so frustrating

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Speaker 1: because it's like the last six years didn't happen. Did

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Speaker 1: you not listen to the industry who said that when

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Speaker 1: you guys suggested an idea as dumb as like as

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Speaker 1: Lake Onslow, that is what stopped people building any more. Generation.

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Speaker 2: When when you're talking about people in the industry saying that,

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Speaker 2: you're talking about the generation retailers, Yeah, who don't like

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Speaker 2: the idea. They don't like the idea of some kind

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Speaker 2: of battery, which is what is one of the options

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Speaker 2: to achieve battery. They don't like that because, come on,

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Speaker 2: billion dollars in profits, you cannot tell me you are

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Speaker 2: going to argue in favor of making bigger profits over

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Speaker 2: increasing supplies.

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Speaker 1: That's fine, might agree on that, right, we may agree

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Speaker 1: on that, but it's not going to change the fundamentals

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Speaker 1: of how this market works. You cannot tell me that

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Speaker 1: you guys, when you're re elected, are going to go

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Speaker 1: on and do exactly the same thing that you did

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Speaker 1: last time and just put us back in this hole again.

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Speaker 1: Is that what you're going to do.

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Speaker 2: When you're asking different questions, you're asking what the alternatives

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Speaker 2: are to using gas as a peak electricity source, And

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Speaker 2: what I'm saying is we need more energy storage in

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Speaker 2: New Zealand. Onslow is only one of the ways that

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Speaker 2: we can achieve that. There are other ways of achieving that.

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Speaker 2: I'm PRIORROI, even on a smaller scale, is one of

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Speaker 2: the ways that you could look at achieving that. There

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Speaker 2: are a range of other options. Geos Thermal has more

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Speaker 2: potential to act as a peak electricity source, and we

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Speaker 2: haven't explored the potential for it to do that. And

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Speaker 2: that's a much better alternative than gas because you can

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Speaker 2: capture the carbon probit and it's not as the planet

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Speaker 2: doesn't damage our climate change targets as much. So you know, ultimately,

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Speaker 2: the problem that we've got now is that the market

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Speaker 2: has prioritized dividence and profits and we're talking about billions

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Speaker 2: and billions and billions of dollars over investing in a

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Speaker 2: new generation because profits.

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Speaker 1: Betiful totals to what we're talking about supply.

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Speaker 2: No, it's not to be. If you increase supply, you

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Speaker 2: lower the pride. They don't want to lower the pride.

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Speaker 2: I don't want a constrained supply because that's how they

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Speaker 2: makes up profit.

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Speaker 1: You know that there are businesses closing because of what

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Speaker 1: you guys did when you were in government, and you're

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Speaker 1: basically at the moment by not wanting to back away

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Speaker 1: from this band, you're basically putting the climate ahead of

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Speaker 1: these jobs.

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Speaker 2: Absolute bollocks. Should know better than that. The reason that

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Speaker 2: we haven't shortage of guess is because for the last

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Speaker 2: twenty odd years we haven't found any that's not true.

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Speaker 1: That true, Chris, Chris in twenty twenty true Chris in

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty. OMV found gas at two toui. That's four

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Speaker 1: years ago.

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Speaker 2: And they found that it was an economics to ebstract it.

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Speaker 1: They haven't even had a proper look at it commercially.

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Speaker 2: They didn't find a commissionable.

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Speaker 1: Again said, and you can tell me if the situation

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Speaker 1: has changed. But they said it is a significant discovery.

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Speaker 2: So they had the permit, they could have drilled it.

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Speaker 2: They chose not to because they decided it wasn't commercial.

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Speaker 1: They chose, you know why it's not commercially viable because

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Speaker 1: you people banned oil and gas exploration. That's why it's

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Speaker 1: not commercially viable. And because you people put one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent renewable target on our electricity market.

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Speaker 2: That's not that's a ridiculous fact.

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Speaker 1: That is that's fact.

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Speaker 2: That is what they say, any existing permits. We didn't

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Speaker 2: cancel any existing permits. You did who had those crisps.

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Speaker 1: But then in conjuncture.

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Speaker 2: Them and development, they chose not to chris.

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Speaker 1: In conjunction with the band, you also then set a

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Speaker 1: target of one hundred percent renewable electricity, right, which means

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Speaker 1: we were going to phase our gas. So why would

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Speaker 1: they get the gas out of there?

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Speaker 2: I mean, ultimately, what's your sensitive tw one hundred percent?

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Speaker 2: One hundred percent renewable is what we're going to have

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Speaker 2: to do. Mean, the climate commitments that the previous national

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Speaker 2: government signed.

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Speaker 1: Us up there you go right there, you've put climate

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Speaker 1: ahead of jobs even.

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Speaker 2: Well, mean, how many jobs we're going to have if

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Speaker 2: we don't tackle climate change and the planet becomes unlivered.

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Speaker 1: How many jobs are were going to have if you

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Speaker 1: keep on going down this path and trying to run

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Speaker 1: us into the ground, into some third world electricity status.

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Speaker 2: Well, running us into the ground will mean it'd be

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Speaker 2: more in climate change.

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Speaker 1: Chris, tell me this right now, Chris, I don't want

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Speaker 1: to make assumptions here because of this. Tell me this

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Speaker 1: right now. What's more important to you those two hundred

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Speaker 1: and thirty jobs at Winstone or the climate both. You

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Speaker 1: can't have both, mates, You just told me you can't

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Speaker 1: have both. Which one do you want?

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Speaker 2: Why were many of those big plants, Many of those

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Speaker 2: big industrial plants were built where they were built because

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Speaker 2: they were located near to renewable electricity sources. The p

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Speaker 2: problem is the market's now become so distorted that that

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Speaker 2: renewable electricity isn't providing them with the check electricity that

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Speaker 2: they've had previously because of the way the peak market's working.

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Speaker 2: It's the market if there's a market failing here, but

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Speaker 2: there is a debundance of renewable electricity.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on the show. I always appreciate

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Speaker 1: having a chat to you. Chris. It's Chris Hopkins, labor Leader.

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Speaker 1: For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio