But think of the jobs it will create. We'll need a whole new govt dept to run it too!
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But think of the jobs it will create. We'll need a whole new govt dept to run it too!
Won't it be a renamed Electricity Authority? Already there. In any case, say 10 staff, 1 mill cost p.a., half of that coming back in taxes, not a big price to pay for hundreds of millions of savings in power for the retail consumer. Don't forget that's the target, not existing wholesale users. Small SMEs will benefit too, of course. MRP and all of the other electricity SOES have a team of database analysts, doubling up on each other's work no doubt, keeping an eye on the trends in power use, figuring out their power deliveries in the weeks and hours ahead, working out how best to supply the cheapest power to the end-users who are paying at a fixed rate. If we still had the NZEC, there would just be one team doing that work, and it would have saved us all some costs. Like these costs.
Too right - I think it's time we had an option like the big power users, to buy on the spot market, or to negotiate a deal (like we think we can with the banks, on interest rates).
By the way, there are some charts being pointed at by National, showing that the power prices went up when Labour got in around 1999, just after National's power reform (Max Bradford). The power prices had dropped a bit, and then started climbing. The key bits of information missed out, are that the SOEs probably started figuring out how they could work together after a few years, the new normal. And more importantly, the giant Maui gas field started running down about the same time. This put the price of wholesale gas up (it doubled) and of course Huntly was then used to set the lowest spot base price, while running on gas. We were using most of the power available back then, and there were rolling blackouts in dry winters. So Huntly often featured in the spot pricing, because it had to run full bore at 1000MW to conserve the hydro lakes.
Nowadays the E3P side is used, and of the four older 250MW turbines in the main structure, one is mothballed at the moment. The other three appear to be getting looked after for longer-term use.
What are the chances I was one of those polled by TV1? :) http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/nati...w-poll-5413152
Yes, CJ, maybe a Labour/Green coalition has a real chance this time. I did find out who polled me, it was UMR. Here's their research for all of 2012. It shows that the public are starting to get a bit disenchanted with the govt, steadily.
http://umr.co.nz/sites/umr/files/umr_mood_of_the_nation_2013_online_0.pdf
Bryan Gould has written an article that was published in the Herald on Friday. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=10878341
Bryan Gould has been around the clock so many times and learnt so little there must be rubber strips flapping off his tyres as well as peeling paint.
He was a Labour MP in the UK for Yonks and yonks and his thinking has never advanced since about Harold Wilson circa 1964. He's bl**dy lucky to still get published let alone still breathing.
Wrong MVT. Bryan Gould eyes a comeback in NZ as this week´s version of the Labour Party has moved far enough to the extreme left to include him right smack bang in the middle of it !
I had to read this statemen from David Parker (defending why he as a Minister in 2006 opposed their newly announced policy) several times as I did not believe my eyes : " However, Parker told BusinessDesk much had changed in seven years, and that the only reason for continuing with the market arrangements at the time was because there was a shortage of new generation, and the changes could discourage such investment from occurring."
In other words, investment was sorely needed in new generation and only the private sector could fund it. Now that several billions of dollars have been invested by private investors, the time has come to nationalise it.
This is something one would expect from the late Hugo Chaves or Cristina Fernandez Kirchner.
Good luck to Labour to explain this to the average and not so silly NZ voter, once the dust settles on the headlines about power price reductions. No mention yet for the average punter on the fact that the sugegsted poer savings will be eaten up and some, by implementation of Labour/Green ETS alone. This purely populist, misdirected and economically destructive policy will not withstand the coming scrutiny.
Don't expect too many voters to look past the $6 a week - even though there is no guarantee they will get that, but whether they do or don't the govt. will miss out so have to pick it up from another tax. Labour has shown before how easiky the voters can be bought. (Think Cullen - remove interest from student loan.)
Leopards don't change their spots do they? This sort of stuff has been well covered already. Labour performed brilliantly in building up the number of SMEs, budget surpluses, and tax income in their last three terms. They had every right to see that tertiary students, who had gone through completely state funded in the past, had a small rebate on their interest costs, now they were funding about 1/3 of their education costs themselves. There were also a lot of other good initiatives that were allocated some of the new tax base.
Conversely, National has reduced their tax base, and their voters would like to see it reduced further. The govt is probably still meddling too much, it will probably always be meddling too much, nothing new there from this faction. Meanwhile more NZers are unemployed, SME numbers have dropped, manufacturing has continued a decline but it's much faster, and we are looking at a surplus of power generation for the first time in many years. As for budget deficits, National has set some records there.