Power Crisis Looming

Wednesday 26 May 2004

Ken Shirley - Press Releases - Energy

It is arrant nonsense for Energy Minister Pete Hodgson to feign surprise over the looming power pricing crisis due to transmission grid constraints, ACT New Zealand Deputy Leader and Energy Spokesman Ken Shirley said today.

"Advisors and energy experts have been warning of these perils for several years, and the under-investment in the national grid is a scandal," Mr Shirley said.

"The astronomical price spikes, which have had a crippling effect on major industries in recent years, are a direct result of grid constraints exacerbated by a lack of generation capacity in dry years.

"We now have an appallingly inappropriate structure in the energy sector, with State-owned monopolies dominating generation, reticulation and supply.

"The benefits that initially flowed from energy sector restructuring are being whittled away as we progressively revert to a State-dominated sector with ever-increasing bureaucracy and regulation.

"The answers for the New Zealand energy sector are more market and less Government, so that smart investment and innovation can be applied to best meet the demand," Mr Shirley said.

ENDS

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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>>