Dry Winter Impact

Now, um, there's a lot around that. One, the government announced earlier in the year they were going to go ahead with this LNG terminal, they're gonna fast track it through um processes because of course it takes a long time to consent and build things and it's expensive. All of those things in New Zealand, we're not good at with infrastructure. Um obviously there's a lot of political opposition to this. We saw a report from rewiring Ulti or last week in Sapiri, which basically said diesel is actually a better option while we build the renewables, while we get ready for it, that the L and G terminal is an expensive option and may not actually be needed by the time it's built. The reason they're saying that is because the Gen Taylors and other companies are actually doing a lot of work to build more renewables. We're actually building at pace. There's a lot of investment. I know there's a lot of interest uh internationally from investors in what's happening in New Zealand and and wanting to be part of the renewable energy story in New Zealand. The problem is a lot of that needed to be happening a lot earlier. We're behind. We're catching up, we're gonna get there. It's just that we need more of it now. And so the government's solution is this L and G terminal. Now, where's the politics get into this is not just the opposition to it, but also that when the government announced this a few months ago, they said it would be paid for via a levy. Now that is a tax on your bill. The government will argue it's not a tax, it's a levy, it's a charge. You can use whatever word you like, but that is something that consumers were going to have to pay. And what we've seen today is a backdown of sorts from the government, an admission that in a cost of living crisis when your fuel is over three dollars a litre and that's not looking like changing anytime soon. Every bill is going up every time. The government's gone, okay, it's not a good look for us right now to be chucking another levy on power bills. So they're saying that's not going to happen, that they are in commercial uh conversations with the gene tailers, those are the energy providers, those are the ones who you pay your bill to about how they will pay for that. I'd love to be a flyer on the wall for those conversations to know how the government's going to force the gene tailors to pay for this. They're also saying it's going to be essentially fast tracked, as I said. They wanted this ready for operation if needed by winter 2028. That is two years away. That is really fast for something of this size. They say they've got um RFPs out, they're talking to two potential uh providers who can build these, who are experienced, and that again would be very interesting to know who they were and who has the ability to actually go out and build something of this size in that short time frame. It is gonna have to be fast tracked through consenting processes. The other flying the wall is, of course, if there was a change of government, yeah, is this gonna happen? So Labour has previously said if a contract wasn't signed, this will not happen under them if they were in power. So that's another what if it's again why this government is trying to fast track this as fast as possible, right? They want as much of it in place before the election. If for any chance they were no longer in power after November 7.