Monday, 30 July 2001 Media Advisory

Electricity stakeholders meeting

Minister of Energy Pete Hodgson will meet electricity industry stakeholders at 9am tomorrow to discuss possible responses to the prospect of electricity supply shortages later this winter.

Participants in the meeting will include electricity generators and retailers, the national grid company Transpower, the Electricity Networks Association (representing line companies), consumer groups, the wholesale electricity market operator M-co and officials from the Ministry of Economic Development, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority and the Ministry for the Environment.

The meeting will progress issues raised in a similar meeting last Friday. Mr Hodgson expects to further discuss the prospect of electricity retailers offering incentives for consumers to save electricity — such as 'buy-back' schemes that offer financial credits for reduced usage — and methods of targeting savings in the commercial and retail sectors.

The meeting will be on level 20, Bowen House. News media are welcome to video or photograph people entering the meeting, but should then leave the floor. There will be a press conference following the meeting in the Minister's office, level 19, Bowen House, at 10.45am.

Press conference:
10.45am, Tuesday 31 July 2001
Office of Hon Pete Hodgson, Minister of Energy
Level 19, Bowen House
Wellington

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>