Auchinvole Chris: Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Auchinvole Chris: Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) 
: 
 I will take just a very brief call on this one—the low fixed charges and the tariff option for domestic consumers. Let us look at the eligibility threshold for the low fixed charge. Coming from the West Coast of the South Island I have to say that the telephones have been running hot in my little blue office with questions about why the coast has not been included in this particular strategy. Having looked at it and having put the ruler across it I guess that the West Coast should be delighted that it has not been included because the strategy will not work at the present rate. Indeed I think the Minister is on record as saying he would speak to power companies and others to explain how it should work. 
There is rather a nice aspect to this in terms of the way in which economists think and express themselves. It would appear from the spin of the Minister in the chair the Hon David Parker that the scheme will address inequality but let us remember that it does not talk about discounts or amounts; it talks about margins. Yet although lower-use consumers who have not yet signed up to the low fixed-charge scheme might get a slightly lower power bill—perhaps by $20 a year—everyone else including people who are already on the scheme will probably pay more as the power companies simply raise tariffs across the board to make up the lost revenue. I understand that economists call this the waterbed effect which is rather a nice economic expression and is one that even without being an economist I can understand—if we push down in one part of the bed something else lifts up to compensate. 
Meanwhile residential power prices are up compared with industrial ones. I gave those figures a little earlier. 
Phil Heatley 
: What were they? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: I shudder to read them out again. But seriously in the last 5 years residential power prices have risen by 48 percent compared with a 25 percent price rise for industrial and commercial users so people should be entitled to wonder what the hang is going on. Increasing the threshold for the lower South Island may not be needed. Given this Government’s inaction over climate change its mismanagement of deforestation and the amount of carbon dioxide currently being pumped out I ask whether there will be enough power. 
When I travel throughout the West Coast - Tasman electorate I normally at some stage pass through Reefton if I am going from north to south. Reefton was the first town in New Zealand to have electricity. Its residents are proud of that and they have signs up saying it. Its residents generated it themselves. They have done a lot of work re-establishing their historic streetlights and that sort of thing. I think it is sad that Reefton could well be one of the first towns in the southern hemisphere not to have regular power unless it gets one of the handy-dandy generators that I understand the Minister is bringing in in groups of 100 to supplement power when our current power supply is not capable of keeping up in the way that it should. Thank you Mr Chairperson.