New Zealand Legislation: Supplementary Order Papers

Explanatory note

This Supplementary Order Paper proposes a number of changes as follows:

• section 52S(1)(b)(i): the Bill currently provides for input methodologies to identify any costs that can be passed through to prices. The amendment clarifies that input methodologies cannot provide for the legal costs of appeals to be passed through to prices:

• section 53P: the amendment to subsection (5) corrects an error. New subsection (5A) confirms that, when resetting the rate of change applying to suppliers subject to default price-quality regulation, the Commission may take into account the effects of inflation on suppliers' inputs:

• section 54B: these amendments tidy up the definitions of some of the electricity lines services that are exempted from the provisions of subpart 9:

• section 54T: this amendment replaces the new criteria section for decisions on whether the Commerce Commission's jurisdiction under Part 4 should be transferred to the Electricity Commission. The Bill as introduced provided powers to transfer jurisdiction for all or any electricity lines services. The Commerce Select Committee recommended that the power to transfer jurisdiction (section 54R) be limited to Transpower only, so this SOP makes a consequential change to section 54T to limit the criteria and consultation requirements to Transpower and transmission issues:

• section 55A: these amendments remove subsection (2)(c), which exempted from the provisions of subpart 10 gas pipeline services that convey natural gas for supply to industrial and commercial consumers located within 1 kilometre of a gas station or existing gas pipeline. The Commerce Commission has advised that subsection (2)(c) would be difficult to administer. Suppliers of affected pipelines would be able to apply for inclusion in the Schedule of excluded pipelines (which is Schedule 6). The amendments also tidy up another of the definitions of the gas pipeline services that are exempted from the provisions of subpart 10:

• Schedule 6: this amendment reinstates the exemption for the Faull Road Mixing Station–Motunui Plant main process gas pipeline, currently owned by Methanex. The reinstatement has the effect of exempting this pipeline from the provisions of subpart 10. Apparently, there are 2 parallel pipelines from Faull Road to the Motunui plant, only one of which is now owned by Energy Infrastructure Limited and Petroleum Infrastructure Limited.