Labour govt 2020-23

[ynot]

Can someone tell me how you catch the flue - who is throwing it and they must be reasonably strong and where did it come from, it may be needed come winter - don't want all that smoke inside your lounge do you

Fair point. I would probably prefer to catch omi than a flue ! not to mention all that smoke - and mirrors !

[STr]

Nice - just got the EMail from the power company - our Daily rate is DOUBLING. Why? Government has determined that Low Power Users shouldn't benefit from actually not using much power - I am sure that is unfair for those with larger families.

I'll just add that to the inflation costs we actually see - vs the garbage 6% we are being told.

[stoploss]

Nice - just got the EMail from the power company - our Daily rate is DOUBLING. Why? Government has determined that Low Power Users shouldn't benefit from actually not using much power - I am sure that is unfair for those with larger families.

I'll just add that to the inflation costs we actually see - vs the garbage 6% we are being told.

It might pay to look here.
https://www.fastconnect.co.nz/connec...MaAt2LEALw_wcB

[STr]

nice - thank you

[Blue Skies]

Nice - just got the EMail from the power company - our Daily rate is DOUBLING. Why? Government has determined that Low Power Users shouldn't benefit from actually not using much power - I am sure that is unfair for those with larger families.

I'll just add that to the inflation costs we actually see - vs the garbage 6% we are being told.

It's not strictly correct to blame the govt for this.
It's not the government, its the Power companies & remember these are owned by investors like you & me (well up to you if you want to buy shares in them) Meridian, Genesis & Mercury partially privatised & Contact & Trustpower 100% privatised.


We experienced the same thing (Low power users getting a higher bill).
Obviously there's the power you use plus a charge to maintain the electricity infrastructure i.e. power poles, power lines, linesmen, vehicles, equipment, etc.

Where for example you have a lot of holiday homes, which are empty much of the year, (an example of Low Power users) the electricity company ends up in a situation where they have lots of customers using very little power over the year.
They have to maintain the infrastructure for the area but are not receiving enough revenue from the customers to provide & maintain a safe reliable power system.
Line charges on their own are not enough & are subsidised by power charges.
We used to get power bills for a few dollars a month when the Bach was empty, but obviously we are dependent on hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure to provide it.
Either Low Power users have to face an increase, or regular power users would face much higher power bills.
Its a question of averaging out the costs & finding a fair balance.
If you're a Low Power user you're going to think it unfair, if you're a regular power user you're going to think it quite reasonable.

[iceman]

You need to be really careful when your quoting what other people have said, especially when taking a snippet out of context.

What she actually said was omicron was 'more mild & moderate for most people.'

But she went on to state that still leaves tens of thousands of people whose health may be compromised & may be hospitalised overwhelming the health system.

The other key point she made was, "Covid is in a pandemic state, so the issue is the cumulative impact of people getting it all at once".

Imagine if we lost a significant number of our police force all at once due to illness, or half the nurses or surgeons in a hospital.
Imagine your in a car accident & there's no ambulance available or theres no doctors available in the ER because they're all off sick at the same time.

I actually do not care what she says. She has a completely different view of the world to me and she has done huge and long lasting damage to NZ in my view. She simply has no idea after relying only on people that suit her already made up view such as Dr Bloomfield and Shaun Hendy. They have all been shown up as completely useless. She hates hearing from people that don´t agree with her and that is never good for a leader. Sir Ian Taylor and Sam Morgan are prime examples.

NZ is in a pandemic state and with all the worst yet to come because of a shockingly bad management from an incompetent health ministry and Government for the last 18 odd months. They have been arrogant and totally unprepared for absolutely everything and have learnt nothing from countries that are way ahead of us in dealing with this virus.

[Panda-NZ-]

It's not strictly correct to blame the govt for this.
It's not the government, its the Power companies & remember these are owned by investors like you & me (well up to you if you want to buy shares in them) Meridian, Genesis & Mercury partially privatised & Contact & Trustpower 100% privatised.

Yep mostly driven by private enterprise - rent, utilities, food etc.

Compared to a lame attempt to blame government spending again.

[Blue Skies]

I actually do not care what she says. She has a completely different view of the world to me and she has done huge and long lasting damage to NZ in my view. She simply has no idea after relying only on people that suit her already made up view such as Dr Bloomfield and Shaun Hendy. They have all been shown up as completely useless. She hates hearing from people that don´t agree with her and that is never good for a leader. Sir Ian Taylor and Sam Morgan are prime examples.

NZ is in a pandemic state and with all the worst yet to come because of a shockingly bad management from an incompetent health ministry and Government for the last 18 odd months. They have been arrogant and totally unprepared for absolutely everything and have learnt nothing from countries that are way ahead of us in dealing with this virus.

I agree that mistakes have been made, but are you sure it's just the PM who has "done huge and long lasting damage to NZ" and not simply the Covid Pandemic ?
Because the pandemic has done huge and long lasting damage to every country in the world.
There isn't a country anywhere, that hasn't suffered huge lasting damage from the pandemic & if NZ had somehow completely escaped, it would be a miracle.
Yes I agree the MIQ lottery system has been awful, & there have been other missteps, but overall, the outcomes NZ has achieved with one of the lowest death rates in the world are pretty amazing.

I don't agree she relies only on people that suit her already made up view.
In order to get a wide range of sound advice, the govt set up the 'Strategic Covid-19 Public Health Advisory group' made up of 8 top experts in the fields of epidemiology, infectious diseases & Public Health. Remember this was an independent group which would provide advice independent of the govt's own Public Health experts & we already have some top epidemiologists & other specialists working in the health system.
The P.M's Department also set up 'The Policy Advisory Group' a politically impartial group of people to give free & frank advice, with skills & experience in business, law, economic & social policy. Again this is independent of govt depts like Treasury, Crown Law etc.
So although there will be individuals like Sam Morgan & Sir Ian Taylor who disagree with certain aspects of policy, I don't think it reasonable to suggest the PM is just relying on people that suit her already made up view. Dr Bloomfield & Shaun Hendy are just the more visible ones of a very wide range of advisers in many fields.
Obviously Adern prioritises Public Health over Business whereas some world leaders have it the other way round (with disastrous consequences for the population), but keeping people well has proved to be good for the economy.

There's lots of things we could have, should have done better, but the pandemic is the greatest & most complex threat we as a country have faced in our lifetime.
I don't think for one second a National Govt made up of the current MP's would have handled it better, in fact they would have been a disaster.

[Zaphod]

Nice - just got the EMail from the power company - our Daily rate is DOUBLING. Why? Government has determined that Low Power Users shouldn't benefit from actually not using much power - I am sure that is unfair for those with larger families.

I'll just add that to the inflation costs we actually see - vs the garbage 6% we are being told.

The Clark Labour government introduced this scheme around 18 years ago, but it has been recommended to the current Labour government that the scheme be revoked, as the scheme used high volume users to subsidise low volume users, and this is now viewed as unfair.

This increase isn't just a one off, with the cap on daily user charges rising by $0.30 per annum until April 2026, following which the cap on charges will be removed entirely. The daily cost was projected to rise from $0.30 per day + GST to $1.80 per day + GST at the time this was first discussed, which IMO will be much higher. Power companies overwhelmingly agreed with Labour's proposal to make these changes.

I also note that due to rising energy production costs, labour costs, and various other expenses that the per kWh rate for most providers is also rising, so it will hit consumers very hard at a time we need it the least. With gas network charges set to rise by up to 30% over the next 3-5 years, let alone any changes to the price per kWh or gas, it will become quite expensive to heat the family home.

There was going to be a $5m fund set up those who are the worst affected by theses changes, so perhaps we should all apply just in case?

[Blue Skies]

The Clark Labour government introduced this scheme around 18 years ago, but it has been recommended to the current Labour government that the scheme be revoked, as the scheme used high volume users to subsidise low volume users, and this is now viewed as unfair.

This increase isn't just a one off, with the cap on daily user charges rising by $0.30 per annum until April 2026, following which the cap on charges will be removed entirely. The daily cost was projected to rise from $0.30 per day + GST to $1.80 per day + GST at the time this was first discussed, which IMO will be much higher. Power companies overwhelmingly agreed with Labour's proposal to make these changes.

I also note that due to rising energy production costs, labour costs, and various other expenses that the per kWh rate for most providers is also rising, so it will hit consumers very hard at a time we need it the least. With gas network charges set to rise by up to 30% over the next 3-5 years, let alone any changes to the price per kWh or gas, it will become quite expensive to heat the family home.

There was going to be a $5m fund set up those who are the worst affected by theses changes, so perhaps we should all apply just in case?

Thanks Zaphod for this interesting background to the current scheme.
You say though the scheme uses high volume users to subsidise low volume users. Isn't it the other way around? Perhaps you could clarify this?
Low volume users are being charged a higher rate than High volume users for exactly the same power, which seems unfair.

Apart from this, the incentive anyway for all of us should be to use less power, not more.