Government finally sees the light on power crisis

National's Energy spokesman Gerry Brownlee says the Government's finally facing up to the looming power crisis with its decision to boost the savings target for the government sector to 15%.

This comes on top of a call by the Winter Power Task Force for consumers to up their savings target to 10%.

"The Government's at last realised what the rest of the country has known for weeks - that we're in the grip of a serious energy shortage. To say this is not a crisis is a nonsense," says Mr Brownlee.

"The Government has to face the reality that the country is drastically short of power generating capacity and it must remove the barriers to further investment in generation, particularly thermal generation.

"National warned of the current crisis in December last year, but the Government refused to listen. It also failed to heed the warnings of those running our electricity grid.

"Encouraging energy savings is a good thing but it is only a temporary response. Since most consumers buy their power from Government-owned power companies, the next step must be to develop consumer discounts for power savings.

"What New Zealand can't afford is more workplaces facing cutbacks and closure because of soaring power prices. Sadly, that is what we're facing in the months ahead," says Mr Brownlee.

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