Today I spent some time with the residents of one of the Council housing blocks in Wellington. I really enjoy my catch ups with these groups as they give me a regular update on what matters to people who come and go on very modest incomes. And there was one resounding message. Coming out of winter the biggest issue is power prices. These folk are watching every dollar, and they see the moves up and down. This has been a hard year and looking back over the last few years the increases have been large. They are not necessarily up to date with moving between companies, and the companies are generally not chasing them. They do wonder why the government is taking such a big profit from the power companies it controls on the public’s behalf.
Phil Goff addressed this in his Labour Party conference speech, and it is something Labour is taking seriously as we put our policy together for next time.
I think Charles Chauvel on Backbenchers stated that Labour was going to do something about reducing the expectation of divideds back to the govt. As yet I have seen no details as to how Labour are going to achieve this. It was Ok for $4b to be GOUGES out of electricity users for the 9 years that Labour was in control. Yet I get the impression from this statement “They do wonder why the government is taking such a big profit from the power companies it controls on the public’s behalf…” Where is the onwership that Labour was a major part of the problem, and that you have only recognised the issue once you have suffered a loss at the election. Statements without the the “How” statement sound very shallow.
Power is one of the infrastructure necessities that should be a government monopoly but the government shouldn’t take any dividend from it. Any income above it’s operating costs should be fed back into improving the power grid so that it can meet the needs of NZ going forward while keeping prices as low as possible. Telecommunications is the same.
Cheaper power would be nice,
I’m glad Goff said something about this in his speech, this is a good sign that Labour would do something about this if they got back into power.
I agree with Ghost over keeping prices as low as possible, especially for the ill and the elderly.
Telecommunications unlike power is open to technology advancements to make what is current obsolete. So Draco I think that Teleco is not as essential as power. Peoples quality of life is more dependant on affordable power than govt owned telco (I think).
I do agree that retained profits should have some proportion allocated to maintaining the grid or new forms of generation be that Wind,solar or flooding a valley, BUT if it is to flood a valley then the has to be mitigation to compensate for the loss of the environment occurs in, many other types of consents be it filling in a stream, planting etc have a mitigation component to them.
Doesn’t cutting the dividends then just leave a hole in the government accounts that needs filling from elsewhere. What shall we increase to make up the shortfall
Wow, is this some kinda new thing? Have not the power companies been gouging for the last decade? Where were you then? Please, to pretend this is a new issue is an insult to every billpaying member of the public.
Cocomc to cover this shortfall, this would be simly. Get the IRD to target property speculators. I could get $100m out of this groug without great effort. With the reduction of household expenditure, such things as housing allowances WFF entitlements would not have to be as great. Just to name a couple.
‘eres a graph on historic electricity prices
…what’s the deal!
[...] at it again, with Grant Robertson blogging: Today I spent some time with the residents of one of the Council housing blocks in Wellington.
Grant.
Do you really expect us to believe that the rise in power prices are the fault of the current administration when under the 9 years of Labour power went up over 60%!
To say Labour is taking this seriously is nonsense. When power went up 9.1 % in 2003, what did the government do? When power went up 8.8% in 2004, what did the labour government do? 2005, 4.4%. 2006, 7.8%. 2007, 6.2%. 2008, 7.1%.
It is one thing to highlight power pricing. Do do so in this manner is dishonest.
That is true of pretty much everything including power. Huntly power station has mostly the old and obsolete generators (~30% efficiency) and one or two of the new combined cycle generators (~47% efficiency).
I have NFI how you get to this from the previous sentence but I would disagree. Telecommunications is just as essential if not more so in a modern economy where information is king.
Slightrighty, DPF etc. Its remarkable the way you simply ignore both what the post actually says, and indeed what Phil said in his speech. Let me say it again- We got it wrong. You can talk up what happened in the past, but what Phil said at conference and what I am saying here is that we are committed to doing this differently in the future.
Maybe DPF’s defensiveness here is because he knows this is a significant issue and that National will continue to take huge dividends as hard working Kiwis power bills continue to rise.
Modified the line to be more accurate.
If electricity, or any other limited resource, is too cheap then what are the drivers to use it efficiently? or to insulate our homes, or for factories/office buildings to do energy audits?
If it is too cheap, we just use more of it driving the need for more and more bulk generation stations.
And are those who want cheaper electricity (to use less efficiently) the same people who want us to reduce our emissions because of their belief in climate change?
Why is it so easy for politicians to say ‘we got it wrong’ after they loss an election, after having spent 9 years ignoring those who were trying to tell them that ‘you need to change it’?
Electricity Vs telecommunications:
why not look at parts of the system? The roads are state owned with lots of private companies using them to compete with each other. Why not the same for telecoms? State owned fibre optic, telephone lines and cell phone towers with standardised access for lots of private sector companies to come in and operate?
@ Grant, that may be so and if true good luck to you but given that circumstances it is hardly something on can try and make political capital out of or campaign on, not less than a year after feasting on it for 9…
I wouldn’t even blog about it but rather leave it till your next election manifesto…
That is a concern but what we have ATM seems to be the other extreme where people can’t afford it and so don’t use and end up in hospitals with cold related illnesses that cost us more or even dying. The idea is to try and strike a balance but this can’t be done by the market due to the companies need to make a profit in the short term.
I agree, but I also think that long term finding some eco friendly ways of generating energy would be better than cutting back to the point where we turn back the clock and live like pioneers, shudder.
Grant, you mention that you got it wrong, what are the details to say what was wrong, why it was wrong and how are you going to fix this. Sorry but without details there is a resemblance of hallowness.