Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / John Harbord: Major Electricity Users' Group Chair says Kiwis are grossly over-paying for power

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John Harbord: Major Electricity Users' Group Chair says Kiwis are grossly over-paying for power · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Sales for the electricity, gas, waste and water services industry
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: up thirty six percent in the June quarter. That's on
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the same time last year. This is from stats end Z.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: They put it down to the energy crunch. So no
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: rain for the lakes, it's cold, we're using more electricity.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: The gas storage problem, the gas issue. It comes on
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the back of the Windstone Pulp International closures yesterday. Two
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty jobs have been lost there. John Harbard
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: is the Major Electricity Users Group chair. He's with us
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: this morning. John, Good morning, Good morning. Just wanted to
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: check with you. Are you aware of any new mills
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: or factories that are considering closure because of this problem.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Look, I think it's there's a number of businesses that
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: are under enormous strain at the moment, and you know,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: their ongoing operation is a matter of almost daily consideration.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I think the other thing we need to bear in
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: mind with Winstone Pulp is there's a lot of businesses
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: in that area that make their living supporting Winstone Pulp,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: and so their future at the moment is highly uncertain
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're talking about essentially about the potential decimation of
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: entire towns, here you've got two hundred and thirty jobs,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: but then you look at that that's probably one thousand
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: people in terms of family members, et cetera. You know
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: our Kerney data hei these have a population of two
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: thy three hundred.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's absolutely devastating for that community, and I think
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: it really shines a light on how vulnerable that a
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: lot of our regional and provincial communities are two things
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: like rapidly escalating wholesale electricity prices that undermine the viability
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: of the businesses that they depend on.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: This thirty six percent increase this is for the gurn
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Court on the same time last year for electricity, gas,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: waste and wastewater services. Is that significant?
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's absolutely significant. To put another sort of way
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: of looking at it, Ryan is for the per we're
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: looking at starting in twenty sixteen. At that time, the
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: combined profits of the four gentailors was two hundred and
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: ninety seven million dollars. This year, the combined profits of
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: the for gent tailors is one billion and eighty five
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: million dollars. So we've seen a massive increase in the
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: amount of profit these companies are making and they're not
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: making any more. Electricity than they were eight years ago, so.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: We shouldn't have partially privatized them.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Well, I think we certainly had an argument that the
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: partial privatization has exacerbated a pre existing problem. The Commerce
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Commission back in two thousand and nine, so prior to
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: the partial float, found that New Zealanders were already paying
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: higher prices for electricity than they would if we had
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: a competitive market. And to give you a sense of
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: sort of what the scale of that is is sort
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: of between the electricity regulator, the electricity Authority and private
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: investment companies that have sort of looked at this with
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: their modeling tools. Because the estimate is New zeal And
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: consumers including households, are paying between one and two billion
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: dollars a year more than we should be for our electricity.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Goodness me, John, thank you very much for that. Of course,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: there's a task force that is currently looking at options.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: We'll see how that goes over in Australia. As a
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: report earlier in the show, they are looking at nuclear,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: you know, because you cannot rely on wind, solar and
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: hydro its intermittence, so you either need coal or gas
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: or nuclear. For more from News Talks B Listen Live
• 3:30
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• 3:32
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