Turei Metiria: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9781. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]10.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) to theMinister of Finance: Does he stand by his answer “no they’re not” when he was asked whether New Zealanders arepaying too much for electricity in light of the 5.2 percent increase in power prices in the past year?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I stand by my statement in the context in which it was made which was in response to the following question: are New Zealanders paying too much for power as Grant Robertson suggests? Of course Grant Robertson’s suggestions were the usual combination of exaggeration and illogical statement and that is why I said “No they’re not.” I went on to say that of course New Zealanders would prefer to pay lower power prices but around the world the experience is that the best way to set power prices in the long run is to have a competitive market and all countries that we know of have been moving from Government-run monopolies towards more competitive markets. The Labour-Greens policy is the only political policy we have seen heading in the opposite direction. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: We will just wait until the Labour benches are quiet.Metiria Turei: Why is the Minister continuing to defend excessive prices for power for families and excessive profits for power companies when he knows that there is a direct link between cold and crowded homes and rheumatic fever in children?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am not defending excessive power prices. It is—[Interruption] Well the power prices will be much higher under Labour-Greens policy because their climate change policies will cost the average household $500 per year. What we are arguing for is that in the long run competitive markets are the best way for consumers to get the lowest power prices. In fact you could almost guarantee that the Labour-Greens policy will lead to higher power prices; it is just a matter of when.Metiria Turei: Why does the Minister believe—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Right now we will have the supplementary question.Metiria Turei: Why does the Minister believe that it is acceptable for a quarter of a million New Zealand children to live in households who pay too much for their power or worse live in cold homes and get sick because their families cannot afford to pay the big power bills that they face?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Of course it is not acceptable for people to be living in poor conditions that make children ill. That is why the Government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars insulating those homes—precisely to get the health benefits. The cost of living increase in those homes is not 5 percent as the member says; it is actually 1 percent for the last 12 months—in fact a bit less than 1 percent which is among the lower increases in the annual cost of living that we can recall. But if that member was that worried about it why did she support the previous Government which pushed up power prices by 8 percent per year for 9 years?Metiria Turei: How many cold unhealthy homes would have been insulated for the estimated $100 million that his Government has wasted on selling Mighty River Power?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I cannot give the member the details on that but I would ask her this: how many homes could have been insulated for the $400000 she has wasted on a dodgy referendum?Metiria Turei: Supplementary—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: We will just wait for Annette King. [Interruption] Order!Metiria Turei: Does the Minister believe that it is an acceptable trade-off to allow children to live in cold crowded homes and become ill because their families cannot afford the power bills while companies like Contact Energy make billions of dollars in excess profits because he will not do anything about the price gouging that New Zealand families suffer every month?Hon BILL ENGLISH: If you were going to look at the companies as a measure of what has happened to power prices and profits from them the Contact Energy shareprice I am advised is lower today than it was 5 years ago as is the TrustPower share price. If those companies were making super-profits then they would have super-sized share prices and in fact they do not. It does not matter how much the Greens say power prices are at some ridiculous or excessive level it is the case that they are rising much more slowly than when she was supporting a Government that pushed up power prices for the poorest households in New Zealand by 8 percent per year and burdened them with 5 and 6 percent increases in the cost of living rather than 1 percent. So she should stop being as moralistic as she is wanting to be.