Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Here's what's so disappointing about the energy announcement

If you were looking forward to today to learn how the Government would rescue the country from the energy crisis we face, you are already disappointed by now because you've looked at it and you've seen there's nothing here.

There is nothing here that is going to stop us going through what we are going through right now. For months and months every winter for the last two winters we've seen the closing down of mills, extremely high power bills, and a shortage of gas - and all of that's going to continue.

The disappointing thing is that we have waited two whole winters for this package of ideas, and yet the best idea seems, to me, to be a kooky idea, which is that the Government may be backing the construction of an LNG import terminal.

That was an idea that sounded great last winter, but in the months since, when we've actually had a look at the thing and had some reports done and it has been debunked for being quite expensive for not a lot of gain.

To set up one of these terminals, most likely at the port of Taranaki, it would cost somewhere between $200 million and $1 billion dollars, which is not money that we have.

The gas that we would then import from offshore to basically make up for the shortage of gas that we have in the country at the moment would be very expensive.

Have a look at what you're paying for your gas right now - and add 25 percent to that.

The second best idea in this seems to be the Government throwing taxpayer money at the partially owned gentailers in order that they can raise capital to build more generation. Which is not capital that they appear to be asking for.

They do not seem to have a shortage of money, as evidenced by the fact that they keep paying out massive dividends.

The upshot for all of this - as in how much we're going to save - Simon Watts reckons he might be able to drop power prices by two percent a year. Two percent.

Now, I'll tell you the problem with this plan is that it appears - and from what I hear - they haven't spent much time understanding the problem and thus understanding what it would take to fix it properly.

So what they've done is, in haste, cobbled together a series of what sounds like maybe decent announcements if you're half listening. But they're really things that will not do that much.

Unfortunately for them, we have an energy crisis, and it is massive. It is probably the biggest thing that is facing business in this country right now.  A crisis of this size demands a proper fix.

This is becoming a theme for this Government - having lots of really big things to deal with, and they're not really dealing with them properly.

This is not really a fix.

So unfortunately, and I'm so sorry to say this, strap yourself in because it looks like for next winter and the winters to come, the deindustrialization of New Zealand will continue.

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