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Speaker 1: She was a chilly weekend, wasn't she? Even in Auckland

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Speaker 1: it was five degrees. We had the heat pump cranking

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Speaker 1: the entire weekend. I spoke to a friend of Marlborough

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Speaker 1: last night who had the fire going all week and

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Speaker 1: they actually had a proper frost. It's right now you

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Speaker 1: start thinking, though, isn't it? How much is all this

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Speaker 1: going to cost? Me? And the answer, because I checked

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Speaker 1: this morning the power bill, the answer was for May

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Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty dollars for a house of two

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Speaker 1: people one dog. Already we've spent seventy dollars for June,

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Speaker 1: which what are we the ninth of June At the moment.

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Speaker 1: This is one of the few bills that I actually

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Speaker 1: pay in our household, so it's one of the few

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Speaker 1: that I really notice. It's not going through the roof

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Speaker 1: tracking roughly the same as last year. And disclaimer for

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Speaker 1: those of you thinking this is an outrageous amount, our

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Speaker 1: place is old and cold, pretty poorly ventilated, and basically

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Speaker 1: you need either aircorn in the summer on all the

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Speaker 1: time or heat in the winter. There is good news

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Speaker 1: on the energy front though for twenty twenty five, not

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Speaker 1: that it directly affects us ALL more than big industrial users,

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Speaker 1: but by virtue of that us All Forsythe bar released

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Speaker 1: an energy note on Friday. They reckon we'll avoid another

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Speaker 1: big energy crunch this winter, but we will return to

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Speaker 1: one in twenty twenty six. So no blackouts for twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five, which is good. The reason we've avoided this

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Speaker 1: is because the electricity producers did to deal with methodex

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Speaker 1: and we've had rain, so the hydrolinks have been given

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Speaker 1: a top up. To avoid future blackouts, we'll need to

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Speaker 1: cut industrial demand, which is not great for business, and

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Speaker 1: burn more coal, and that brings us to gas, a

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Speaker 1: shortage of which caused last year's energy price crunch. Forsyth

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Speaker 1: Bar reckons the government's push for gas is actually unlikely

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Speaker 1: to solve our problems. It takes two to three years

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Speaker 1: to get a gas field up and running. First, you

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Speaker 1: have to find it right now, nobody's even looking. No

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Speaker 1: gas fields are being explored. By the time you get

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Speaker 1: gas out of the government's two hundred million dollar budget

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Speaker 1: buy in, the energy shortages will likely have past. It's

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Speaker 1: one thing to let the producers go it alone and

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Speaker 1: risk their investment in capital. It's another to put our

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Speaker 1: money on the line to develop these fields. There's a

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Speaker 1: genuine question about whether this is smart investment in our future,

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Speaker 1: or if taxpayer money is being wasted here, a bit

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Speaker 1: like the heat escaping from my old house. For more

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Speaker 1: from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News

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Speaker 1: Talks at B from five am weekdays, or follow the

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Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio.