Mr Knapp details Clyde dam deal

Press, 26 October 1982, Page 26

Mr Knapp details Clyde dam deal

The full implications of Social Credit’s agreement with the Government on the Clyde dam might not be felt for some time, a public meeting in Queenstown has been told. Social Credit's deputy leader, Mr Garry Knapp, told the meeting that his party had “wrung" big concessions from the Government, in spite of Government assertions to the contrary. Government Ministers, including the Prime Minister, had made a written commitment to irrigation develop-’ ment where previously only verbal commitments existed. The Minister of Energy, Mr Birch, had, only 24 hours before the final reading of the Clyde Dam Empowering Bill, agreed to a clause that

significantly protected irrigation, frost-fighting and rural water rights during water shortages. Mr Birch agreed to the clause in response to the potentially embarrassing threat of Social Credit moving its own amendments with possible Labour support, the outcome of which would have been a coup for Social Credit, said Mr Knapp. The Government tried to say that it gave nothing away on the question of electricity pricing, yet for the first time it had agreed to a specific base figure for the charging out of electric power. It had also agreed that supply contracts would include escalation clauses based on increasing generating costs.

Mr Knapp said that this was a big concession. "Whereas most costs rise at something around the rate of inflation, average power generating costs ... will rise faster,” he said. “This is not the sort ,of condition with which major projects such as aluminium smelters could easily live, and represents a major departure from Government policy.” These concessions, combined with the Government's commitment not to tamper with the level of Lake Wanaka, make it “extremely unlikely” that power would be virtually given away’ to big projects such as aluminium smelters.