NZ's energy future debated on stage in Queenstown

By Katie Todd, RNZ

Battle lines are being drawn over the country's energy future, with Labour promising to pull the plug on a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal if it wins the next election.

MPs and leaders from six parties clashed over fossil fuels, blackouts, power prices and whether the country's biggest electricity companies should be broken up at an energy debate in Queenstown on Monday afternoon.

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins said the proposed $1 billion gas terminal would cost every single household at a time when the country should be doubling down on renewables.

New Zealand's energy security lay in wind, solar, hydro and geothermal power, he said.

"Let me be very clear. If Labour leads the government after the next election, the LNG import facility will not go ahead because it is a step backwards and the wrong move at the wrong time," he said.

"The opportunity to build a clean future, to generate our own power here at home, to bring down costs and to create good jobs isn't a distant ambition.... it is within reach."

The LNG proposal was backed by National, ACT and New Zealand First, which argued the country needed a backup plan for when hydro lakes were low and renewable generation dropped.

The focus had to be on reliability first, Energy Minister Simeon Brown said.

"The reality is... we have to solve the dry year problem," he said.

"In the absence of another solution which can deliver that degree of firmed backup energy, that is what we need as a country. And that's what we're progressing through a procurement process to do," he said.

Brown took aim at Labour, accusing it of opposing ideas without offering enough of its own.

"I took a note of every new idea that Chris Hipkins actually announced in his speech today. I've got an empty page. He's the man without the plan," he said.

Labour's energy spokesperson Megan Woods - who stepped in for Chris Hipkins during the debate - fired back with a criticism of the government's decision to scrap existing decarbonisation and electrification initiatives.

"I'm obviously not going to stand here and announce Labour's energy policy. I'll tell you what we won't do. We won't go in and we will not cancel the funding that was there to move our manufacturers and our industry off expensive fuels and move to electrification. We won't go in and we won't cancel the support that was there for households," she said.

The Opportunities Party (TOP) leader Qiulae Wong said her party's energy policy was launched in February.

TOP wants to triple New Zealand's renewable energy capacity to 30 gigawatts by 2050 and ring-fence dividends from electricity gentailers to be reinvested in decarbonisation and electrification efforts, she said.

"This is a clear signal from government to say we back this future, we will put our money where our mouths are and we will lead the energy transition," she said.

TOP would also reverse the plan to build an LNG import facility because it risked locking the country into fossil fuels, she said.

"We think what actually this highlights most is the lack of our long-term energy strategy in this country. That's why it's been such a failure of a communication to the public - because nobody trusts where we're going in the next 30 years," she said.

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick told the crowd that dependence on fossil fuels was a ticking time bomb that the current government seemed "intent on lacing... into absolutely everything that we do".

"I asked the prime minister in the House on the week or so that the LNG import facility was properly finally announced whether he could name one expert, one economist, one person from the energy sector who was supportive of this plan, who wasn't a fossil fuel lobbyist or somebody from his office, and he couldn't," she said.

The Greens supported New Zealand First's aims to break up the gentailers - and already had a member's bill sitting in the ballot to make that happen, she said.

"It means levelling the playing field with transparency, innovation, and independent generation," she said.

New Zealand First deputy leader Shane Jones was explicit about his aims, saying the country's energy objectives would not be achieved as long as the gentailers were intact.

"New Zealand First will smash them and cut them in half at the next election," he said.

His party was open to refining and improving the fast-track legislation to accelerate the delivery of solar, of hydro, of wind, and geothermal energy, he said.

"It is absurd, despite the shrillness and the strength of the debates around climate change, we still have protracted, strongly contested processes that slow down the delivery of additional units of energy. Unless we engage in trade-offs, unless we're prepared to be pragmatic, we are not going to get the sudden rapid delivery of the levels of energy that we need," he said.

ACT Party leader David Seymour warned aggressive political intervention in the electricity market could lead to the collapse of the system.

"What we want is policies that will lead to an abundance of generation and when you go and change the rules because it's politically popular every three years, all you do is you watch that confidence ebb away," he said.

Asked how the country's energy system would look under the ACT Party, he said: "Abundant, because people who understood how energy markets work created the stability and the careful improvement you need to keep investment happening."

Energy policy would be a key focus at this year's election, he said.

"We're at an inflection point that is going to affect our standard of living if we get it wrong," he said.