“He says he’s open to cross-party action on the energy crisis, but not if it involves natural gas.
“He’s destroying gas companies’ confidence that they’ll be able to operate without being made illegal under a future government. He’s telling energy companies, ‘don’t come here, don’t invest in exploration, don’t tap into local deposits, because if you do, we’ll shut you down’.
“This is exactly why ACT has called for a cross-party accord on natural gas.
“If Hipkins won’t listen to ACT, perhaps he’ll listen to his friends in the unions. With companies like Winstone Pulp and Oji Fibre proposing to shut down and lay off hundreds of workers, the energy crisis could become an employment crisis. [Yesterday] I wrote to E tū and Unite Union calling for them to add their voice in support of natural gas.
“Labour wants jobs and warm nights without the gas, but the reality is we can’t have it both ways. New Zealand relies on gas to generate power throughout the year. In the winter we’re topping up supply by burning coal. Without natural gas, we’d be burning more coal, not just in winter, but in summer too.
“Even with more coal-burning we couldn’t fill the gap left by gas, because our power stations’ capacity is limited. So, what then? We can’t ‘dip into’ hydro when the lakes are depleted. We can’t magic up wind or sunshine. So instead, Labour is promising blackouts, or price spikes so painful that they make normal economic activity impossible.
“Labour’s answer is to lean harder on renewables. We could deregulate to make it easier for private companies to invest in renewables – in fact, we’re already doing that. The question for Chris Hipkins is why he would undermine those efforts to lift energy supply by restricting access to a different energy source, one that we already rely on today.”
Daily Telegraph New Zealand (DTNZ) is an independent news website, first published in October 2021. - where this article was sourced.
“This is exactly why ACT has called for a cross-party accord on natural gas.
“If Hipkins won’t listen to ACT, perhaps he’ll listen to his friends in the unions. With companies like Winstone Pulp and Oji Fibre proposing to shut down and lay off hundreds of workers, the energy crisis could become an employment crisis. [Yesterday] I wrote to E tū and Unite Union calling for them to add their voice in support of natural gas.
“Labour wants jobs and warm nights without the gas, but the reality is we can’t have it both ways. New Zealand relies on gas to generate power throughout the year. In the winter we’re topping up supply by burning coal. Without natural gas, we’d be burning more coal, not just in winter, but in summer too.
“Even with more coal-burning we couldn’t fill the gap left by gas, because our power stations’ capacity is limited. So, what then? We can’t ‘dip into’ hydro when the lakes are depleted. We can’t magic up wind or sunshine. So instead, Labour is promising blackouts, or price spikes so painful that they make normal economic activity impossible.
“Labour’s answer is to lean harder on renewables. We could deregulate to make it easier for private companies to invest in renewables – in fact, we’re already doing that. The question for Chris Hipkins is why he would undermine those efforts to lift energy supply by restricting access to a different energy source, one that we already rely on today.”
Daily Telegraph New Zealand (DTNZ) is an independent news website, first published in October 2021. - where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
Quite simply - Hipkins is trying to become a petty dictator.
He is such a pathetic failure and does not have any other way of getting attention.
He is obviously following the example set by Comrade Ardern and her solo "captain's call" where she single handedly shut down our major energy source.
This is really Third World politics !
The two great scams that morons and ideologues have perpetrated over the last few years, Covid and ‘climate change’, serve to act as civilisational destroyers, one quite rapidly, the other more like a slow but sure cancer. It seems that our ‘leaders’ believe fervently in both, but Hipkins is a lot more open about it. And Doug, it’s not 3rd world politics, it’s global politics.
The Labour Party is the party for the working man. They just don’t spell out how many working men they represent. Clearly no one in pulp and paper manufacturing or the oil and gas industry or the manufacturers and service companies whom provide services to those companies. Maybe Labour want to be gender neutral and represent he / him or they / them.
Hipkins has passed his best and will be moved on, he has no vision, the perfect govt employee.
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