Harawira Hone: Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Harawira Hone: Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15607] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. I say that 22c is not a lot of money but 22c was the price on the head of a Hastings woman who was recently threatened with power disconnection. For that woman 22c was the price between life and death because she used an electronically powered nebuliser just to be able to breathe at night. An account for 22c was sent out by Energy Online to this woman with a threat to disconnect her power if that 22c was not paid within 24 hours. 
I say that 22c is a pretty cheap price for anyone’s life and that was a particularly nasty threat from a power company that is obviously interested more in corporate profit than in providing a service. The worst thing is that this nasty little piece of corporate greed and malevolence came up not more than 2 months after the country was shocked by the tragedy caused when another power company refused to acknowledge its social obligations and Folole Muliaga died from its mean-spiritedness. 
It is sad that we have had to come to this Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill through a tragedy but it is good that this bill which will help to sort out regulations around disconnection and low-charge options for domestic consumers is before us now. But the very necessity for this bill also highlights the other areas of our economy that impact on a whanau’s ability to meet rising electricity costs rising interest rates rising petrol prices and rising food costs. 
We cannot help but shudder really when we think of last week’s announcement that nearly 20000 kids need to be fed at schools every week because there is just no kai at home—20000. That number is the equivalent of the population of a town the size of Thames or Queenstown. For those members from the north in this House that is the equivalent of the entire population of Dargaville Wellsford Kaikohe Kerikeri and Kaitaia. The equivalent of the entire population of all of those towns is having to be fed every single week because there is not enough kai in the cupboards at home. Having 20000 children living in poverty is a national bloody disgrace. 
This morning the Maori Party hosted Kate Green the chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group in Britain. She told us about the perception that there is a deserving and an undeserving poor. There is sympathy for the disabled child living in poverty but there is blame for others for poor parenting or making bad lifestyle choices implying that they are responsible for their fate when often their economic background means that they have almost no other choices. She challenged us to establish a child poverty target to help measure the impact of social and income gaps on our nation’s children. 
In a similar vein 2 months ago the Salvation Army issued  
A State of the Nation Report  
asking what priority we have given to families and to the poor and just 2 weeks ago church leaders called for an increase in benefits to help people cope. What happened? Nothing actually because with all the bellowing bragging backslapping and big-noting about our having a free-trade agreement with China the call to help the poor here in Aotearoa got completely ignored. 
There is a forest of reports highlighting the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots yet still the changes are not being made. I ask members to take the submission of the Auckland Regional Public Health Service as an example. It detailed how living in damp mouldy and unheated houses makes illnesses like asthma and bronchitis worse and it causes massive family stress. It detailed how inadequate lighting increases the risk of injury it limits children’s educational achievement and it restricts a family’s options for family activity. It detailed how when the power is cut off the fridge turns off food spoils milk curdles people get sick trying to eat kai that they should have chucked out and families turn to dangerous ways of heating cooking and lighting. They start fires in cracked old chimneys when they should not. They bring old gas-fired barbecues inside the house to cook and they put candles in unsafe places for lighting. The submission of the Auckland Regional Public Health Service highlighted the fact that cutting off power to poor homes causes massive problems for the whole family which society ends up paying a whole lot more for later on. 
The Maori Party is hugely disappointed that the guidelines provided by the Electricity Commission for electricity retailers in the past have been ignored leading to the crisis we face now. But I also have to point out that we do not believe that tax cuts—as proposed by Mr Phil Heatley from National—will do anything at all to sort out this problem. I know that because when poor people get a tax cut what it means for them is another $2. They will not take that $2 and say: “Hmm shall I consider what my electricity options are this week? Shall I consider what health insurance company my children should have? Should I consider what scholastic options I might save for my children?” Hell no; they get another $2 in the pay packet and they spend it. 
Tax cuts are great but in this situation the basics of life are more important and providing for the needs of people without a proper supply of kai without decent housing and without access to low-cost electricity is an absolute must. The Maori Party believes that every effort must be made to protect vulnerable consumers and to give priority to families and to the poor. Accordingly we will be supporting this bill so that we can put guidelines into place to ensure that people having difficulty paying their bills are not just cut off randomly; that people who are reliant on electricity for medical equipment are not cut off at all; that power companies are forced to deal properly with vulnerable consumers whether they live in Kew Aranui Porirua Flaxmere Otara or Otangarei; and that the Government can step in to deal with power companies that refuse to honour their obligations. 
This is not just legislation; it is a call for this House to start turning itself around to start recognising the needs of people as being more important than profit and to start restructuring our whole society accordingly. If we do not take that lead then we certainly cannot expect those on the bottom to want to believe the kinds of things that we say. Mihi atu ki a koe e te Kaiwhakahaere ki a tatou ano e te Whare tena koutou tena koutou a kia ora tatou katoa.