Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Grant McCallum: Northland MP on the $1 million energy package from Transpower. Omexom in the aftermath of the blackout

Transcript

Grant McCallum: Northland MP on the $1 million energy package from Transpower. Omexom in the aftermath of the blackout · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Right now though, from one disaster to another. That pylon
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: up in Northland that fell over and caused something different
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: impacts and damage across the region. Transpower is going to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: be paying one million dollars towards resilient power projects for
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Northland following that transmission tower collapse. Grant McCallum is the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: North and the MP. He's with us this morning, Grant,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Good morningding right.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: And the difference between this and the cyclone damage is
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: that this was not an act of God. It was
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: an active and competence.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: But we all know that, yes, quite right. Is this
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: enough to make up for it?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: No, of course not. I don't think anyone's under illusion
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: about that. But I think one of the lot of
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: people don't realize is that Transpower do not have to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: guarantee power supply. It's in the act. And so to
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: actually get them to give up cough up with anything
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: is it was quite a challenge, to be fair, but
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: we managed. So we managed to squirrel a million dollars
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: out of them, which we'll use to a region wide
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: projects and benefit of Auckland. Not not a lot of
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: money really, but at least it's an acknowledgment in a
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: good will payment sense that they did actually cause some
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: harm to the people of Northland.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: What do you reckon The cost was teams of millions?
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Well, well it was. I've seen estimates ranging from forty
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: to eighty million, So take your pick, you know.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And they gave you one. They gave you one.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, but they started at zero and when they are
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: obliged to do nothing in this case. So that's so
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: we did our best to get some money out of them.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Do you say that's what we came up.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Do you think there should be some kind of lord
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: change so that they're not they're obliged to do more
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: than zero.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Well, ultimately, I suppose that would come down to then
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: how much you will paid to pay for power? Because,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: as it had explained to me, if we if we
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: may have to make everything more resilient, it'll cost more
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: and the power prices go up. So I think as
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: long as people that undo bolts unnecessarily, we should be fine.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Right Northland, I didn't realize this. Northland, you're actually a
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: net exporter of energy. You've got your geotherm on their kaikar,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: You've got a big solar going in. Can you are
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you confident in the lines the distribution to get it
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: down country to us.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: This is a real opportunity. We actually we're not quite
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: in the explorer right there on the verge. We've got
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: the potential that if we upgrade the transmission lines from
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Marsden Point North up to Kaikohe and kok Tire and
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I was arguable we can then generate another six hundred
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: biger Watson concended energy, including increasing they them Natha and
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: that will make a real difference to Northland and also
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: supply energy from the North into Auckland, which will help
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: them because at the moment all their energy comes from
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: your south.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it wo'd be lovely to have some from you guys.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: And you know what, you know, what's it to if
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: we get you charge charge away. But you know what
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: happens as soon as Auckland's involved and you know everything
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: will be done, it will be fixed and done quickly.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: You know. Well, well you know that there might be
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: a word called leverage. We can be trying to use
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: that absolutely.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Hey, thanks very much for your time this morning. Great
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to have you on. Grant McCallum, Northland MP. So there
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: you go, youre getting a million bucks, which is as
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: it says better than none.
• 3:04
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• 3:06
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• 3:09
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