Comalco: A Case in Point

The first time that the Executive's right to govern by decree was challenged, was over the "Comalco Incident". In the early 1950s under a Labour Party administration, it was seen that in the near future more overseas funds would be needed. A report from the then Electricity Division established that there was an excellent possibility of utilizing a considerable electrical potential, at any of several South Island lakes. Parliament then unanimously enclosed a proposal to "hawk around" this potential in an effort to get "Overseas Investment".

A peculiar consortium of "investors" was found, and convinced to come to New Zealand and take New Zealand's power in its hands for next to nothing. It must be remembered that both major New Zealand political parties agreed unanimously to the whole proposal, and both came to power during the "negotiations" and could have influenced "developments" at any stage.

Comalco, New Zealand Aluminium Smelters, Rio Tinto, or by whatever name they were operating under at the time, had the New Zealand government build a massive hydro-development at Lake Manapouri, shooting the Waters of the lake through a hydro-tunnel to a sound in Southern Fiord-land.

An initial supply of electricity was agreed upon, a price for the power (the station was paid for by the New Zealand people) was fixed and then all the details were classified variously as cabinet papers, agreements which come under the Official Secrets Act and so on. The amount of power required by the Bluff Smelter (an annex of Bell Bay Australia) was to increase over regular periods as new parts of the plant were brought into production.

This meant that more water would have to be available at Lake Manapouri at certain "peak" times. As there existed no known means of conjuring up water from nowhere, the only alternative immediately available, was to raise the level of Manapouri, so that when required, the excess water could pass through the turbines and produce the "needed" electricity. The net effect of the Manapouri "deal" then meant that the lake was to fluctuate between having no shoreline (submerged) and during droughts (the water was still taken) having sheer cliffs for beaches.

The damage to the lake was seen by the New Zealand people to be excessive, so much so that a major confrontation occurred between the people and their elected controllers. After a massive petition and mobilisation of concerned individuals and organisations the government was forced to accede to nearly all of the demands of the people.

The people had expressed their feelings and in doing so had embarassed the Executive; something obviously had to be done to prevent such an undesirable political occurence happening again. The backroom boys produced a compromise, a filtering process that would appear to satisfy the wishes of the people, and protect the Executive from interference or subjugation on resource-environment management.