Thanks to Pat for his addition to the submission. Anyone else who has written a submsiion feel free to email me at maffoo@orcon.net.nz & ill put it up
Anyone wanting to make a submission but doesnt have the words, feel free to copy paste from here

I oppose the intent of this bill because:

Energy security is crucial for our nation and the selloff of energy assets may sabotage the future of New Zealand. According to the International Energy Agency, the world hit peak oil in 2006 and we are now on the downhill side of the curve with potentially as little as 15 years left before we are sucking the bottom of the barrel.

Evidence of this is all around us if we consider the rise in fuel costs, increased conflict over fuel resources and increased effort to utilise more expensive and hard to get non-conventional hydrocarbons.

If left unchecked, we will see living standards undergoing a dramatic decline. All discussions of an economic nature are moot without energy, for without energy there is no economy.

As fossil fuel resources deplete, economies will contract, thus productivity and profitability will go down.

Keeping this in mind, consider our reliance on these resources. According to the NZ Energy Data File 2011, about 62 per cent of New Zealand's energy comes from fossil fuels while the remaining 38 per cent comes from renewable resources. Renewable resources in which there has been hardly any investment in for over 30 years! Instead of resting on what our forebears left us and hoping for the best, we should be growing renewable generation capacity dramatically.

It takes energy to make the infrastructure to harness energy and presently we are squandering that opportunity. It will take at least 15 years to build the infrastructure required and the longer we wait, the more it will cost and the less likely it will ever happen.

Our existing energy generation infrastructure offers a good basis to build on. As oil prices rise, more of our energy needs will be met by electricity and therefore our electrical generation infrastructure will become more important, more valuable and more profitable.

For example, to put 1.5 million electric cars on the roads it would require three times current generation capacity, but we will also require much more electricity to keep our economy running. So, in the future, electrical generation capacity will become ever more important and must be increased vastly to meet future needs.

We should use profits from electrical generation to augment renewable capacity to kick dependence on fossil fuels. If we start investing now, we would also keep money in New Zealand by not needing to import as much oil.

Rather, we would be meeting our needs with free, local, renewable resources. Indeed, we must build the infrastructure to capture the energy but the running costs are low.

Why risk letting the backbone of our economy fall into foreign hands to enrich someone else or if not foreign hands, why let it become an enterprise focussed on profit for shareholders...profit that would come from skimping on investment and raising prices? Our electrical generation profits will be growing immensely as we transition from oil as our reliance on electricity will go from 38 per cent to 90 per cent of total energy or perhaps even more. Why let go of 49% of the income stream that will be growing as electricity becomes more important? Why allow these companies to be transformed into enterprises that solely focus on returning a profit for investors? The energy infrastructure of this nation has had little substantial investment in the past 30 years and without investment, we could be placing our economy in a precarious position as things may start to fail and we will also have a shortfall as demand increases. Without complete ownership, we cannot ensure re-investment will take place to augment generation capacity and we risk having a serious shortfall.

This is a matter too crucial for market forces because they may dictate to squeeze all the profit out rather than investing. We need cooperation, lest we lose everything due to blind faith in economic ideologies. We need to look after New Zealand by keeping jobs and money here; by investing in renewable energy while creating jobs and export potentials.

We should look at the long term consequences versus the short term inconvenience and get on with it. Selling these electrical assets is purely a short term band-aid at a time when we need surgery. Selling these assets will increase energy poverty in NZ as well as see more of our money go overseas and neither of these things is good for the people of this country. Selling these assets will hurt NZ in the short and long term and it needs to be stopped.

I recommend that we follow a path similar to what the Greens mapped out in the last election. They were absolutely correct when they stated that we can drive economic growth on the back of our energy sector and it can benefit all of us. There is not much profit in dairy products and as shipping gets more expensive, business for far flung NZ will start to dwindle. High tech energy solutions however have high value and therefore are worth shipping even as rates increase. High tech solutions also harness the brain power and help us keep people in NZ, ending the brain drain and we can bring more money into the country as well, rather than watching it flow offshore.

We are at a crossroads here where we either choose to invest in the future of NZ OR we put the for sale sign up and fully become renters in our own land. The sale of assets would be one more nail in the coffin for this nation.