The gas sector is currently co-regulated by the Government and industry-owned Gas Industry Company (GIC). This co-regulation has been the case since 2004, though major gas outages last year have raised the question, do we need to rethink this governance model? In our recent report for the Major Electricity Users Group (MEUG), TDB undertook a full review of the current gas governance landscape, meeting with a range of different stakeholders, and reviewing the academic literature and experience with co-regulation. Questions we addressed included:

• is co-regulation the best option for New Zealand’s gas industry?
• what is the biggest industry concern with the current governance?
• is there some industry capture going on here?
• what if we moved to joint regulation model for gas and electricity?

See what we concluded on these points and more in our Gas Industry Governance Review.