Simeon Brown

Well, since we announced the LNG importation terminal back in February, the forward price for electricity has reduced because the risk premium that is being passed on to consumers has gone down. And so we've actually seen the forward price go down by about $20 a megawatt hour since that was announced. Um that's actually a saving to the New Zealand economy of about eight hundred million dollars per year. And so the the whole point of pursuing this is to take that risk out of our energy system uh and put downward pressure on power bills uh because we will have a more secure supply of energy due to the fact at the moment we've got um this risk in built in because we've got dwindling natural gas supplies here in New Zealand.

Ultimately, they can only earn and receive the funding that uh or the or the revenue that comes from what they can sell power for. And so we're seeing reduction in that forward price. That means uh, and that's an $800 million per year reduction in the cost of energy to the New Zealand economy. Uh the whole point of this is to take that risk premium off people, off businesses, make our energy more affordable uh by dealing with the security supply issue. And the challenge here, and the challenge the challenge we've got here, uh Andrew, is that uh we have dwindling gas supplies, not helped by the previous government having uh banned oil and gas exploration, but we have dwindling gas supplies, and when we have a dry year, the power companies at the moment are taking either taking gas from industrial users or uh the price goes up significantly for other companies. But that is a cost which is borne by the economy and risks thousands of jobs. So we're setting we're saying we're telling we're you've said that a lot, and I we understand that.

New Zealanders know that the responsibility sits with the generators to pay to manage dry year risk. It's their obligation, it's their responsibility. And New Zealand is actually been paying for the fact they haven't dealt with this issue. We've had a $30 to $50 a megawatt hour increased risk premium on our power bills for New Zealand households and businesses. So it is the generators, retailers' responsibility to fix this. We are putting the responsibility where it sits very firmly in their camp, um, not on the pills bills of power of power customers.

Well, we are running out of gas very quickly. We have had a 23% reduction in New Zealand's gas reserves in the past year. And production this year is now expected to be 15% lower than expected at the beginning of this year. And so that is a significant reduction. That means for those businesses that rely on gas, there's less of it going around. Prices are increasing. It's harder to get contracts. And a lot of this is due to the last government putting the one the ban on oil and gas exploration in place and diminishing its role in our economy. And so we have a role to make sure we support those businesses through this transition to make sure that we can protect jobs and industry.

We're going through the procurement process. Half of our backup thermal production comes from the coal stockpile at Huntley. Uh but there's another half that is required. Uh, and that's where LNG can play a role. We're going through our procurement process uh at the moment in regards to that, but that is different from what we've announced today. Yep. This is about supporting businesses as they transition through that process, but we still need backup energy because when the wind's not blowing, sun's not shining, and we have a dry year. We need the backup energy to make sure we've got affordable prices for consumers.

Well ultimately we are the we are the big party within the government we're the one who where the party which is has the largest number of ministers around the table delivering on the big portfolios we want to ensure that New Zealanders know and know what we're the the key issues that we're focused on which is Growing the economy, managing this fuel crisis, that's why the Prime Minister and Nicola Willis are in Singapore today to make sure that we can strengthen those international relationships to ensure we have the supply that we need. But also we need to clearly articulate our plans for the future and that's what we'll be doing over the next six months with

In an MMP environment before, he's had to manage the complexity of that. What we saw last week, I think it's been well traversed. There's been plenty of questions around that. But at the end of the day, the Prime Minister has been clear about his position in that. Winston Peters has been clear that there were some mistakes made in his office. We're moving on. What we're now focused on is ensuring that New Zealanders get... The fuel supplies that they need, we're dealing with the current crisis in Iran. That's the priority of the government. My role as campaign chair, maximising our party vote at the election and that's what Would our campaign will be focused on doing. No, look, we are focused on staying in this coalition arrangement all the way through to November the 7th. It is working well. We're delivering a lot, whether that's around the economy, law and order, health and education. Well, we're not going to an early election. We're focused on governing together. as a coalition providing stable government during challenging global times. That's what New Zealanders expect, that's what we're doing.

Again, I'm not going to go into who was there, but there was political staff from the TVNZ political team and they chased Stuart Smith down a corridor and he went into his office. He declined an interview. They stood there, they remained there for some time, banging on his door, asking him to come out for an interview. They then pressured him into an interview saying, well, effectively that if he didn't come out, things would be reported worse the next day. And ultimately, it breaks the rules of Parliament. One, political journalists can't chase members of Parliament down corridors if they decline to be interviewed. And secondly, they can't interview members of Parliament outside their offices without express permission from that member of Parliament. And this type of behaviour is not acceptable and ultimately we're calling it out. We've lodged a complaint with TVNZ because New Zealanders expect political journalists and political editors to report the facts, to present the case, but ultimately what we're seeing here is behaviour which I think most New Zealanders would say is unacceptable.

Well, it was a colleague of mine, another National Party member of Parliament who was there. Effectively what we're saying here is this is just not acceptable. New Zealanders expect their political journalists and political editors to be holding their teams to a high standard and to make sure that they're reporting the facts. What we're seeing here is behaviour which I think most New Zealanders say is unacceptable.

Again, I'm not going to go into who was there, but there was political staff from the TVNZ political team, and they chased Stuart Smith down a corridor and he went into his office, he declined an interview. They stood there, they remained there for some time, banging on his door, asking him to come out for an interview. They then pressured him into an interview saying, well, effectively that if he didn't come out, things would be reported worse the next day. And ultimately, it breaks the rules of Parliament. One, political journalists can't chase members of Parliament down corridors if they decline to be interviewed. And secondly, they can't interview members of Parliament outside their offices without express permission from that member of Parliament. And this type of behaviour is not acceptable, and ultimately we're calling it out. We've lodged a complaint with TVNZ because New Zealanders expect political journalists and political editors to report the facts, to present the case, but ultimately what we're seeing here is behaviour which I think most New Zealanders would say is unacceptable.

expected and as a result of the previous government's oil and gas ban exploration ban which has not seen which has basically had a chilling impact on our gas industry and that's bad for New Zealand businesses bad for industry which relies on gas but also bad for electricity consumers and this is this is why we've reversed the ban on oil and gas it's why we've as government put 200 million dollars into support and further exploration and it's also why we're having to we're now going through a procurement process for an LNG import facility. facility because ultimately we need to make sure that New Zealanders, businesses and households have access to affordable energy and the last government's decisions have badly damaged that for New Zealanders.

Well, there's been a significant increase in the demand, partially because obviously we're an ageing population, but also because we as a government have invested in a significant number of additional cancer medicines, 33 new cancer medicines that were funded in Budget 24, and many of those require additional infusions. And so this is responding to the increased medicines that we're providing as a government, more people getting more modern treatments, which is meaning that they have greater survival. responses to cancer diagnoses and so this is responding to that but it's also bringing those cancer treatments closer to home and so for example when we announced this yesterday we did that at Waitakere Hospital which is going to start offering cancer infusions from tomorrow up until today everyone in the Waitakere area of West Auckland quarter of a million people if you require infusions you have to travel into Auckland Hospital to get those infusions. So that's treating people closer to home in their community. It's going to make a big difference for patients.