Sharples Pita: Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Sharples Pita: Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15452] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Many people in the history of our great nation are remembered for their exploits—Hone Heke for chopping down the flagpole Sir Apirana Ngata for the work he did as a parliamentarian Sir James Henare for leading the Maori Battalion and for his work as a statesman Buck Shelford for his leadership in rugby and so on. Unfortunate though it may seem the name Folole Muliaga will now forever be associated with this Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill. This is a bill that reminds us of the helplessness and the tragedy of daily life for far too many New Zealanders. The tragedy is not the fact that we have low-income families in our midst. There will always be those who struggle. The tragedy is how deaf we have become to the plight of an ever-increasing sector of our community and the helplessness that poor people feel about a society that treats them like a boil on the butt rather than as people in need. 
We know of the Electricity Commission’s guidelines on arrangements to assist low-income domestic consumers the recognition of the special needs of those with health or disability issues and the fact that the commission wanted the power companies to deal with low-income consumers. But we also know that the existence of such guidelines is recognition of the growing gap between the haves and have-nots in our society. We know that New Zealanders are being crippled by the massive hike in housing prices. We know that 250000 households get Work and Income’s accommodation supplement for low-income earners and beneficiaries. We know that some 230000 kids miss out on support from the Working for Families package simply because their parents are on a benefit. We know that far too many New Zealanders are being forced to buy cheap nasty food because their money is being gobbled up by rents and other things. We recall with great sadness even though the guidelines existed that there was nothing in place to deal with the heartless response of the call centre that flat-out refused even to discuss any other payment arrangements for the Muliaga family. 
We welcome this bill if it helps to improve the training of the call centre staff if it helps people threatened with disconnection and if it helps poor people understand their rights how to talk to power companies about what different charges mean how often bills come along what the penalties are if people are late in paying how people handle any disputes and how people find out whether there will be any power shutdowns. The challenge of course is how to communicate all this to the consumers. Will a pamphlet or a note on a website do? How do power companies tell who is at risk? What happens when a household is close to being cut off? How do power companies teach vulnerable consumers about their rights? How are other agencies involved such as iwi health and social service groups Work and Income and budgeting services? 
I ask these questions because something else we in the Maori Party know is that putting information on websites putting out more pamphlets and telling people they are welcome to discuss various aspects of their power bill does not work for the simple reason that poor people do not ask rational questions about power supply and default procedures. They do not know how to ask. They are too shy of looking dumb so they look at the ground they smile they mumble a “yes” when asked whether they understand they shuffle their feet they nod while being talked to but most of them just want those helping them to go away because they feel uneasy standing on their porches next to rotting rubbish bags or smelling the stink of clothes in the wash house. 
We know that disconnection affects a family in heaps of ways such as no TV no kai not being able to flush the toilet no hot water to wash with no light for homework and the heater cannot be turned on. People start blaming one another families start bickering and fighting and kids sneak off to their mates’ places because they hate being in the dark. We also know that disconnection leads to dangerous situations like fires in unsafe places from candles being close to beds and people trying to hot-wire their houses in the dark. 
Sure none of us wants to see people get their power cut off but in a time of rising food prices rising petrol prices unreachable house prices and rising electricity prices disconnections are a fact of life that we have to deal with. Electricity price rises and disconnections affect not only poor people. The Federation of Family Budgeting Services has issued a warning that while in 2002 the average debt owed by clients was $2500 today that debt is a staggering $6000. The federation has also warned that more and more middle-income people are struggling with mortgages rent and making ends meet. 
What happened to the Muliaga family last July was a tragedy. What happened to the rest of society was a brutal wake-up call. Hopefully this bill will lead to better things. It would be nice to think that power companies have learnt something and we hope the new measures proposed in this bill will help consumers understand how to better manage their power costs. But I worry that our response will look great on paper but still go right over the heads of the people it is intended to serve. Having good information is meaningless if those who need it never see it. We urge Parliament and the electricity industry to put more energy into working with people who know their communities and engaging with them to ensure that the people of those communities genuinely understand the issues and how they affect them and their families.