A good journo has exposed the Emperor being without clothes. The Press today carried a story in which Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee is unable to rule out power prices increasing as a result of his daft idea to split the Waikati River power generation system from Meredian ownership and give Tekapo A and B power stations to SOE competitor, Genesis. Reducing power price rise pressures was a core purpose of the bill Gerry steered through with opposition from Treasury and many in the power industry.
Is what they call a ‘gerry-mander’
And all done for ideology??
Taking away the consumer’s choice of picking an all renewable power supplier (and hopefully growing this sector of the elctricity market, via the public voting with their feet) by rearranging the power station ownership… I think shows that we should have a constitutional amendment stating wood shop teachers aren’t allowed to manage tens of billions of dollars worth of assets…
I’m surprised he wasn’t asked a question about this.
It is mind-boggling that the reorganisation was done to improve efficiency of the market, but the minister responsible will not rule out price rises? I’d love an explanation – why should I pay more money for National’s ideology?
Don’t forget it was Roger Douglas with the then Labour government way back when who started the mess the electricity industry now finds itself in. Competition among the generators is a joke, the spot market is a joke, consumers can not choose who generates their electricity, only who sells it to them.
(electricity companies as separate from network companies)
Back then, if a new power station was needed, it was built, now the people in Wellington (Brownlee) just play with the bricks and move them around ’till it looks good. This latest move will cost the consumer dearly, paying to buy an asset already paid for is bullshit.
We can all call it the $800 mill Gerrymander
Looks like Genesis will get $800 mill from Meridian , whats the bet it will be counted as ‘profit’ and thus go via another set of hands straight into the Double Diptons accounts.
The poor old power consumers will be funding Bills tax cuts for the rich
I am glad the Journalism who exposes the Emperor without clothes didn’t have a photographer with him.
Idealogical stupidity may have not been the only excess apparent.
Anasazi , you are a bit off with your dates about who “created this mess” Douglas and Labour created ONE generator. (Electricorp). And the local retailers /line business were the same public ones they all ways had been.
It was Bolger/Shipley with their willing Dupe Max Bradford who ‘created the mess’ in the 90s
Plenty of questions have been asked about this Armchair, just none so deaf as those who won’t listen. The Tekapo split appears to be a brainfart from Gerry with little analysis to support it.
Ghostwhowalks bang on, it was Mad Max that created the “competition” which was going to deliver lower power prices. Only problem was he caused a huge flurry of power co internal purchasing which had to be repaid – and as there was no more market to win, prices had to rise. Gerry following in Max’s footsteps.
Competition: A way to raise prices on the promise of lower prices.
You’d think we would have learned that over the last few decades since the 4th Labour government started selling our assets for fire sale prices.
Brendon , I was one of those who worked on the Tekapo part of the Waitaki Scheme. The designers built it all as an interconnected system , to be run as one .
Its bad enough that the original purpose , which was to store the summer snow melt to be used only in winter, but instead its used to generate all year and if it runs out of water in Winter all the better , as the power prices take a leap due to a ‘shortage’
@John W LOL
Brrrrrroghh
When did a Labour energy minister ever deliver lower power prices, or how often did they promise action on prices and never achieve anything?
the answer to the first is never. The second: if they were smart, never.
Of course he can’t promise lower prices – he has no control. And the idea for an asset swap came out of the ministerial working group led by Brent Layton. I suspect it was in response to genesis and Meridian refusing to play nicely in the market regarding hedges, and so forced them to take on some of each others’ risk
insidr – lol the pollies create structures which devolve ownership and control away from themselves and then say “not my problem if prices go up!” How clever.
yeah only problem is you’re looking in the rear view mirror while your man is in charge now so he better get it together
Anasazi, please can we not leave out Max Bradford, he promised lower prices too…