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Speaker 1: On Power Reform Day. What have we learned? Well, there's

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Speaker 1: a posived barrier among these state owned gent tailors apparently

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Speaker 1: when it comes to access to capital. We're moving to

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Speaker 1: a small degree on LPG as well. The electricity Authority

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Speaker 1: gets a boost and transpower has a more sophisticated monitoring role. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the Energy Minister simon, what's with us, good morning? Do

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Speaker 1: I want to cover off reasonably quickly LPG? How much

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Speaker 1: and what's the timeline?

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Speaker 2: So we're looking at doing a request proposal for an

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Speaker 2: importation terminal for LNG. We're going to be releasing that

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Speaker 2: on the sixth of October, so next week, and we're

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Speaker 2: going to get those back before Christmas for Cabinet to

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Speaker 2: make your decision.

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Speaker 1: When does LPG arrive in the country.

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Speaker 2: On the shortest timeline that we've had, we're looking at

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Speaker 2: winter twenty seven, but we're going to need to get

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Speaker 2: proposals through from multinational companies I would expect around what

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Speaker 2: is possible. It's a complex project and there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of kiss involved in order to need to be put

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Speaker 2: in place, but that is the fastest go for a

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Speaker 2: more traditional route than you're looking probably at twenty eight

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Speaker 2: twenty nine, but we need that fuel source.

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Speaker 1: As far as today's announcements concerned Transpower a more sophisticated

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Speaker 1: monitoring role, what does that mean.

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Speaker 2: Well, look, the reality is right now, we do not

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Speaker 2: regulate for a dry year effect. We don't regulate for resilience,

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Speaker 2: and that is an issue that we faced last year.

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Speaker 2: So I'm going to be instructing Transpower that they will

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Speaker 2: need to assume a role of making sure that they

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Speaker 2: are monitoring both a demand and supply in the market,

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Speaker 2: and where there's a gap, as we experienced last year,

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Speaker 2: then the EA regulator will need to make sure that

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Speaker 2: that gap is covered.

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Speaker 1: Strengthening the Electricity Authority, how.

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Speaker 2: We need to put in place much stronger enforcement powers.

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Speaker 2: We're going to give it the powers consistent with the

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Speaker 2: Commerce Commission. That includes the ability to find to have

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Speaker 2: criminalized certain behavior. At the end of the day, we

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Speaker 2: need that regulated to be more powerful and have stronger tea.

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Speaker 2: The Commerce Commission is a good model and the EA

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Speaker 2: needs to match that. So we'll be putting in changes

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Speaker 2: to effect that pretty much by early part of next year,

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Speaker 2: because some of them will require legislation.

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Speaker 1: And is this your sop to all of those who

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Speaker 1: will be disappointed today that you haven't split the gen tailors.

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Speaker 2: Tol Look, Mike, let's be fair. The splitting of the

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Speaker 2: gen tailors is a good politics, but it's not good policy.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't fix the underlying problem. We've already released and

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Speaker 2: announced the changes by the Electricity Authority around non discrimination,

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Speaker 2: which means they can't sell to other people at a

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Speaker 2: higher price than themselves. That's a material change. The major

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Speaker 2: issue we're dealing with here is the fact that their

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Speaker 2: investment in energy sources, thermal etc. To cover a dry

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Speaker 2: year has not been happening. That's the problem, statement, and

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Speaker 2: that's why our bundle of solutions and actions that we're taking.

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Speaker 2: You've got to see this as a package sure to

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Speaker 2: deal with the shortage of fuel, deal with the fact

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Speaker 2: that we've got a short generation, and also deal with

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Speaker 2: the elephant in the room, Mike, which was had sovereign

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Speaker 2: risk as a result of prior government policy, which is

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Speaker 2: the most to get you on.

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Speaker 1: That's the main thrust of your announcement today. The so

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Speaker 1: called sovereign risk, a perception the government would not provide

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Speaker 1: equity injections. Where are they getting that from? And why

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Speaker 1: didn't you just ring them and say we're in Well, the.

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Speaker 2: Reality is, what we're making very clear in the announcement

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Speaker 2: today is that if the entities require capital in order

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Speaker 2: to increase generation, then the Crown is prepared to support

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Speaker 2: capital funding requests for that purpose. We're being very clear

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Speaker 2: around that to make sure that that perception is not

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Speaker 2: the reality.

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Speaker 1: But how do you debtail that with Mike Fuch, who

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Speaker 1: we had on earlier on in the program today, said

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Speaker 1: we've never seen so much investment where we're booming an

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Speaker 1: investment at the moment.

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Speaker 2: Well, Mike, you know, we've got a pretty significant renewable pipeline.

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Speaker 2: I don't doubt that. But am I seeing that flow

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Speaker 2: through in terms of the price of energy. No, And

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Speaker 2: that is what is hitting hard Kiwi households and Kiwi businesses.

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Speaker 2: That's the issue that we need to deal with. And

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Speaker 2: this package of announcements and actions, taken as one, is

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Speaker 2: some of the most significant bundle of energy market package

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Speaker 2: announcements that we've seen in a long time. It's going

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Speaker 2: to need to be seen as one package, not as

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Speaker 2: individual parts, but together we are confident that it will

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Speaker 2: make a significant impact.

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Speaker 1: All right, appreciate your time. Well, wait for the assimon

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Speaker 1: what's Energy Minister. We'll wait for the reaction from the

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Speaker 1: state owned Gen Taylor's but from my reading of this,

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Speaker 1: it's got a so what have we I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: nothing bad about it. It's not like we've gone backwards.

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Speaker 1: But there'll be people upset who weren't going to split

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Speaker 1: the jet, who wanted the gentailer split, which they were

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Speaker 1: never going to be. So if you're upset about that,

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Speaker 1: move on, it was never going to happen. The lng thing, yeah,

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Speaker 1: is that it's not as big as we might have hoped,

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Speaker 1: because it was one of those ideas floated by Sam

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Speaker 1: and Brown who was Energy Minister at the time, and

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Speaker 1: I don't think when he floated it he realized how

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Speaker 1: big and expensive it logistically challenging it was going to be.

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Speaker 1: I find it hard to believe that the Gen tailors

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Speaker 1: were worried about capital raising given the amount of money

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Speaker 1: that's out there on the market at the moment, and

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Speaker 1: all they had to do was ring Simon and go, hey, listener,

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Speaker 1: if we went big on this, could we get some

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Speaker 1: bacon from the government. They would have said yes. So

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Speaker 1: I don't know, it's got a lootwarm vibe about it

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Speaker 1: as far as I can tell.

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