I would like to thank the committee for giving me time to talk to you, and through you, to the people of Makara, Wellington, and New Zealand in regard to the Meridian Energy wind generation proposal at Makara. This oral submission doesn't follow exactly the format of my written submission though it makes very similar points, but it does come to a rather different conclusion. My written submission is strongly supportive of the Meridian proposal, and arises from my acknowledging this country's urgent need to commit to a sustainable electrical generation capacity, to mitigate the effects of burning fossil fuels on global warming, and because gas is rapidly becoming depleted and an ever-more expensive resource.

I have stated too my belief that it is well within New Zealand's capacity to commit to a fully renewable energy strategy, which will be based on energy efficiency, wind power, geothermal and possibly biomass resources, along with hydro and hopefully solar power. I have calculated how this may be achieved, and the figures are in front of you. I have been disappointed by successive ministers of energy responses to this suggestion, both Peter Hodgson and Trevor Mallard have said this impractical, and in saying this they are guilty of a major failure of leadership and vision. It came as a pleasant surprise then to have my suggestion supported by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, in the report entitled "Future Currents". It is my opinion that this is the single most important document to have been published in New Zealand in the last thirty years, but I think it says something about New Zealand's energy priorities that not only has this report been entirely neglected by the electricity industry, it has also been entirely neglected by the media, the politicians and the business sector. To summarise this report, it provides for two contrasting scenarios for power generation in the future, one it calls "Fuelling the Future" and the other "Sparking New Designs"

Fuelling the future is basically what we are doing now, continuing our ad hoc power generation planning - though planning is too kind a word, New Zealand has not had an energy plan for at least 30 years - and continuing our wasteful use of energy, paying lip service to energy efficiency, conservation and to global warming. Fuelling the Future envisages continued major increases in power generation capacity, fuelled by coal, nuclear power, imported gas, and further major hydro projects, along with some renewables in the form of wind and geothermal. It paints the picture of the dramatic and destructive effect that this will have on our environment and the costs to our economy.

Sparking New Designs envisages a completely different course of action, where there is an integrated and long term strategic thinking about power generation, reduced demand through energy efficiency and conservation and a commitment to a totally renewable generating capacity by 2050. This future will be modern, technically advanced, clean, sustainable, achievable and affordable. New Zealand still hasn't decided which is the best option.

And this brings me back to my Makara submission. I have changed my mind about supporting this proposal, not because I cannot see its merit, but because I do not see why the residents of Makara should have to be the sacrificial victims in having to endure the undoubted local problems associated with this proposal, whilst at the same time the rest of the country continues its mindless and profligate ways with energy, and humbugs a sustainable energy future and the problem of global warming.

Let's examine our future. We have just heard the results of a so-called "Independent Enquiry" into the proposed coal fired generation scheme in the refurbished Marsden B power station, in Whangarei. This enquiry was a farce. What is the main issue with coal fired power generation? Pollution, certainly, but surely every thinking person will now agree that global warming is the single biggest issue facing mankind. Yet the very first thing this enquiry said was "thank you for your submissions, but we must point out that we are not allowed to consider the problems of global warming in regard to the Marsden B proposal". What sort of cloud-cuckoo-land country is this? Our "clean, green" country is busy planning coal fired power stations and we are not allowed to examine the very thing that most frightens people about this, global warming? If it wasn't so serious it would be laughable. But the joke is on us, and even more so, the joke is on our children.

The bulk of our coal reserves is lignite coal in Southland. Apart from its appalling atmospheric effects, it is bulky, polluting, acid rain causing and an environmental nightmare. If our clean, green image was ever really deserved, and that is debatable, then you can kiss good-bye to that image for ever. At a time when every other OECD nation is trying to reduce the proportions of fossil fuels in electricity generation, and particularly coal, this country is speeding backwards to the nineteenth century. There is no place for coal power generation in a modern, environmentally committed New Zealand.

Just as we are now approaching peak oil, with its tripling in price and our oil import bill having risen from $1 billion to $4.1 billion annually, the same thing is happening to natural gas. New Zealand has already had its peak gas, and we have only about ten years of available gas at presently planned usage. Because of this, the government have come to an agreement with Genesis energy that it will compensate this company for its new gas generation capacity in Huntly, in the event of further gas not being found. The details of this agreement are secret, but could end up costing New Zealand taxpayers or electricity users hundreds of millions of dollars per annum. This potentially costly gamble on our future resources illustrates pretty clearly the lack of common sense and long-term energy planning in New Zealand. Additionally oil companies are demanding expensive tax breaks from our government to encourage exploration. How can our government claim it is being pro-renewable energy when it continues to pour money into fossil fuel subsidies, especially at a time when all the oil company's profits have risen to astronomical levels. We are being conned. If we continue rely on this fast diminishing resource, and indeed the government have predicted in their energy outlooks that we will still be needing gas in 2025, we will have no alternative but to import it. This is economics gone mad. Chris Stone, an energy consultant, at an oil exploration meeting here in Wellington earlier this year, estimated that if we start having to import gas, our energy import bill would be at least $8 billion. We are already over halfway there in oil imports alone. Think about this. $8 billion is more than this country's receipts for dairy products, horticulture and wool combined. Every milked cow, every shorn sheep and every picked apple will go into desperately plugging this ever more gaping hole in our finances. To continue to run our energy policy as we are doing now will be the economic ruination of our country.

But there is another aspect of New Zealand's electrical energy problems that is even more dire. The Electricity Commission is predicting that our electricity demand will increase by about 2%, or 150 MW, per annum over the next twenty years. A 2% increase sustained over twenty years means that we will have to find half as much again generating capacity as we have already installed. Think about this. It means for instance, having to install a Makara windpower project somewhere in New Zealand every nine months for twenty years, twenty-six such projects - and this just to stand still, we will still have to rely on gas generation for the shortfall. Alternatively we could try to find over these twenty years another Manapouri (4800 GWH), a spare Clyde (2500), a duplicate Roxburgh (1800), a handy Benmore (2,200), a further Tekapo A, B Ohau A, B, C (4050), and last but not least another mighty Waikato River and every single one of its dams (3819) !!

Alternatively we could burn coal, that's nine Marsden B (2200) power stations, New Zealand's two-fingered salute to global warming, or to install three large nuclear plants, welcome neighbours to most New Zealanders, I'm sure. Resorting to coal or nuclear power would be the equivalent of environmental suicide, and yet not to be able to rely on a secure supply of electrical power would be the equivalent of economic suicide. This is the "Fuelling the Future" scenario so alarmingly sketched by our Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and yet this is the scenario New Zealand seems determined to follow.

We have burgeoning populations in New Zealand, with recent high rates of immigration. Everyone, except me it seems, loves the economic activity and the growth immigration brings, but where exactly is this growth leading us? It is leading us to the very difficult economic and environmental predicaments that I have just examined. What is this enquiry but the result of this increasing demand, and how many other enquiries will we be continually needing? For instance, many folk are upset at the proposed power pylons for south Auckland. This is absurd. Auckland is growing. People liken Auckland's growth to that of an unruly but get-up-and-go teenager, I liken it to a malignant cancer. But what does everyone else expect Aucklanders to use for their heating and lighting, cow dung and candles? Such infrastructure is the necessary concomitant of an expanding population and an expanding economy. To the rural folk of south Auckland I say this, power pylons are the price you will pay for so-called progress, like it or lump it. To the people of New Zealand I say the same; power pylons, coal mines, windmills and nuclear facilities are your future, like it or lump it, or for goodness sake do something about our impossibly burgeoning demands for power.

The government have made much of their renewable energy policy and the twenty million dollar help for energy efficiency. But it is grossly inadequate. This is what an energy efficiency consultant said to me three year ago when I asked him about encouraging government initiatives in energy efficiency "We gave up doing it years ago, as the pain associated with beating one's head against a wall became unbearable".  Let's look at one aspect alone, home insulation. I would hazard a reasonable guess that there are at least 500,000 homes in New Zealand with inadequate or no effective insulation. To install wall, ceiling and floor insulation to the high standards our imminent energy crisis demands will cost $5,000 per house, at least, or $2.5 billion dollars. Twenty million dollars is a pee in the Pacific Ocean. A fully funded programme of energy efficiency in the home, solar hot water and passive solar design, could easily save 4 TWH per annum or about 10% of our total generating capacity, or the equivalent of six Makara windpower schemes, to say nothing of the improvement in the health of our citizens and the savings to our health dollars.

This Makara project will be one of the few wind power farms in the world that does not depend on government subsidies. In fact, if this proposal goes ahead, it will be little short of a perpetual goldmine for Meridian. We will all benefit from this, as long as Meridian stays in New Zealand hands, with the exception of the Makara residents. The last part of my submission touches on this point. I would propose that Meridian pay to the local community 0.25% of its income from this project to a local resident's trust. This will amount to about $100,000 p.a. in perpetuity. It could furnish a community centre, a heated swimming pool, great facilities. It will be a wonderful advertisement for the power of the wind to benefit everyone's lives. It will also be a precedent for all the other wind power proposals that will be forthcoming in the years ahead.

One final point, I have heard that some in the Wellington council wish to reduce further the number of windpower generators. For instance, people are concerned that the windmills will be visible from such and such a ridgeline, or from the Makara beach, or from the ferry crossing the Cook Strait. For goodness sake, here is one of New Zealand's most valuable resources, and we are concerned that people on the beach or a ferry might see a windmill? Does anyone seriously believe that ferry passengers would be in the slightest bit bothered by seeing windmills on this land? Denmark has one of the world's most productive windpower programmes. Many of the windmills there are on the coastline. We've all seen pictures of the windmills in rows behind the beach, it makes sense, the resource is more reliable there. Indeed if we were to cut back on windpower generation on these irrational grounds then this will set a very troublesome precedent for other windpower proposals for the future, for instance, much of the west coast of the North Island, from Otaki to Ninety Mile Beach, has great potential for future windpower schemes. If the view from the beach or a passing boat was going to be a main sticking point, none of them will be built. Beachcombers and Cook Strait ferry passengers will see this project for what it should be, New Zealand's commitment to a long term sustainable energy future.

But that is exactly the overriding problem, New Zealand is not committed to a long-term sustainable energy future. This is what Trevor Mallard said this year: "The Government aims to encourage and facilitate a transition to renewable sources of energy, and this is reflected in the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy. However, at an operational level, the electricity market does not favour one type of generation over another, so wind-generated electricity must coexist with other generation technologies." 

Well, I'm sorry, this is just not good enough - the issues with global warming and sustainability transcend economics and the "market", especially an electricity market which is an entirely artificial device created by political extremism and sustained by political expediency. More than anything else these are moral or spiritual issues, related to exactly what sort of world we will be bequeathing our children. This is a government and a country that has signed the Kyoto protocol, and must be therefore, unless it is mad, concerned about global warming. But if this government and this country were truly committed to dealing with global warming, and truly believed in a sustainable energy strategy, then Trevor Mallard's statement, leaving the market to set our priorities for humanity, would be revealed for what it truly is, an intellectual and a moral cop-out - an insult to all those who do believe in a sustainable future and an abandonment of our responsibilities to our planet.

Until I can look a Makara resident in the eye, and say to him or her truthfully, "we're all in this together", approving this Meridian proposal purely on its own merits, and not as an integral part of a New Zealand commitment to a fully renewable energy strategy, then this would be nothing less than inexcusable intrusion into the lives of the Makara residents, and a cynical disregard for our children's future.

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I cannot think of another country in the whole world which stands as blessed as this one. Godzone it used to be called. New Zealand possesses a clement and temperate climate, with adequate, indeed plentiful rainfall most years, some of which we capture and power our agriculture, homes and industry with. The sun shines from a transparent sky, indeed, so transparent it will cause skin cancer to the unprepared or careless. There is boundless energy from the sun and we could use this so much more productively than we do. The winds that caress our shores, and often bluster their way across our land, are cleansing and cooling, and have sufficient energy, if we choose to use them, to power much of our national endeavours. The oceans that surround us are over-exploited but still capable of regeneration, they moderate our climate, and are a source of much of our heritage and the pride we feel in being New Zealanders.

But there are problems. The soil on which we grown our crops or feed our livestock, and which is the ultimate foundation of this country's wealth, is fragile and highly prone to erosion, indeed much land was mistakenly denuded of its forest cover in the earlier days of settlement, and we have been paying a high price since then. Despite our being aware of this problem for many years, progress in protecting this soil is painfully slow, and we still have a very long way to go. On the dryer eastern parts of this country, increasing demands for water are straining our resources. Global warming and snow loss may well exacerbate this in the future. We enjoy an undeserved clean green image because of our lack of population rather than from a true concern for our environment. Our rapidly burgeoning population is greedy for resources, and we are having difficulty providing them. Our inordinate love of the motor car, and our profligate use of energy will have to cease if we wish to maintain any useful standard of living. Our ecological footprint is nearly the world's highest. The continuing introduction of exotic pests, most recently Didymo alga and sea-squirts, is proving very damaging. Our cities, but especially Auckland, are poorly planned, and surrounded by vast sprawling suburbs and so-called rural subdivisions, such that tendrils of cities reach out tens of kilometres and take over much previously productive farmland, and require high use of energy resources for transport. We continue to despoil many kilometres of our most beautiful coastline and much of our countryside with inappropriate and ugly subdivisions. Our public transport infrastructure has suffered from lack of investment for generations, and our rail network is poorer than in many third world countries. As a nation we are going to have great difficulty coping with oil-depletion and high oil prices, as a result of our internal energy inefficiencies and our external isolation from the rest of the world.

Yet despite all these concerns, and they are real, if any nation can see its way to a sustainable future, then New Zealand should be able to see this more clearly than any other. Or to put it another way round, if New Zealand, with its abundant natural endowments and its relatively small population, cannot organise for itself the sustainable future on which our descendants will depend, just where else on Earth can this be organised, and what will this say about our hopes for the future of mankind? Or to put it yet another way, it is precisely because New Zealand can organise a sustainable future, that it becomes our duty that we must organise a sustainable future. It is this nation's fortune to carry the beacon of sustainable progress for mankind; to refuse to take up this beacon will be a moral, ethical and spiritual failure for which our descendants will never forgive us.