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Speaker 1: Now, tomorrow's a big day for the electricity sector, with

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Speaker 1: the government set to announce its surgical intervention. Meanwhile, the

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Speaker 1: Council of Trade Unions has said shared its solution today,

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Speaker 1: which is to renationalize the gen tailors that Mum and

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Speaker 1: Dad investors brought into during John Key's administration. The CTU

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Speaker 1: president is Richard Wagstaff.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Richard hi there.

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Speaker 1: How much would it cost to do this, Well.

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Speaker 2: It would take a considerable time, but basically it wouldn't

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Speaker 2: cost a lot at all because what we're saying is

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Speaker 2: that instead of wasting money as the current gent tailors do,

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Speaker 2: on their own dividends, so it put those dividends back

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Speaker 2: into reclaiming public ownership. So it's a longer term strategy

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Speaker 2: and one where we think the money is better spent

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Speaker 2: than on exorbitant dividends the shareholders, which correct happens.

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Speaker 1: So over a period of time they increase their own

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Speaker 1: stake back up to one hundred percent.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, And if they don't do that, then they

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Speaker 2: can spend their money on investing in the future of

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Speaker 2: the elctriisity industry. What we've had is a system where

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Speaker 2: they're not pumping in the money on capital expenditure. They've

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Speaker 2: been pumping it into private dividends and private profits. So

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Speaker 2: we're saying time to focus on providing energy and electricity

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Speaker 2: as a public utility rather than a place for making

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Speaker 2: his orbit of profit.

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Speaker 1: How long does this buyback take.

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Speaker 2: Well, it depends on how much they want to direct

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Speaker 2: back into dividends or how much they want to invest

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Speaker 2: back into capital expenditure. What we found with a current model,

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Speaker 2: which is sort of unfortunately seems to be dominated by

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Speaker 2: private interests, particularly since privatization, is that they'll put a

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Speaker 2: lot of time and energy into focusing on providing dividends

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Speaker 2: and not enough energy and not enough money into providing

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Speaker 2: capital expenditure. That is up to them, And if we

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Speaker 2: bring in this policy that we're proposing, I'll have to

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Speaker 2: make that call. It might be that they think a

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Speaker 2: little harder about wasting so much money on dividends and

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Speaker 2: they put a bit more into capital expenditure. If they don't, well,

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Speaker 2: the state will own more of it and we'll be

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Speaker 2: able to direct that investment accordingly.

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Speaker 1: I don't think this is a good idea, Richard. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you talk to a phraser Winneray, who was previously

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Speaker 1: the chief executive of Mercury Energy. He himself says that

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Speaker 1: when they floated, it suddenly introduced efficiencies they did have

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Speaker 1: when they were in twe hundred percent publicly owned, which

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Speaker 1: is you think.

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Speaker 2: You've got to be joking. Thirteen billion since twenty thirteen privatization,

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Speaker 2: thirteen billion went out in dividends and a fraction of

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Speaker 2: went into capital expenditure. This market system that keeps.

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Speaker 1: Okay fair enough. That sounds like a big number, But Richard,

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Speaker 1: how much number? How much was spending capital expenditure before that?

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Speaker 2: About a fifth of that we reckon. It's about a

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Speaker 2: year's worth of dividends between twenty sixteen and twenty twenty.

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Speaker 2: There's one point two billion in capital expenditure there. That

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Speaker 2: was about a fifth of the dividend payout. In other words,

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Speaker 2: just a fraction of the dividend pay out. Our electricity

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Speaker 2: is no more generated today than there was ten years ago.

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Speaker 2: There's something failing in Wilson Winnerray and so in winter

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Speaker 2: in Bolsom Winray and Winnerray's model, where we're not increasing

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Speaker 2: the amount of generation of electricity. We have a growing population,

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Speaker 2: we should have a growing economy, We should have cheaper electricity.

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Speaker 2: When we talk to our weeks about this, they're deeply

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Speaker 2: concerned not just about the cost of living and keeping

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Speaker 2: the home warm, they're really concerned about businesses going under,

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Speaker 2: like in the Central North Island we're citing three costs

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Speaker 2: has been one of the biggest shop.

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Speaker 1: Respect to you for coming out with an idea, right,

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Speaker 1: but are you actually you're just dealing with only one

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Speaker 1: part of what is a massive confluence of problems. Right.

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Speaker 1: This doesn't deal with the fact that we have a

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Speaker 1: gas shortage which is causing all the spikes that we're

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Speaker 1: seeing at the moment. It doesn't deal with the fact

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Speaker 1: that the primary thing pushing up our electricity bills, at

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Speaker 1: least for residential customers at the moment, is transmission costs.

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Speaker 2: No, I kept looking at that in the reverse order.

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Speaker 2: Really we've said it differently, Heather. The reason why we're

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Speaker 2: having to we're talking about gas and coal and stuff

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Speaker 2: is because we haven't invested in our renewables. If we

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Speaker 2: start investing in our renewables win solar, GSRMAL, which are

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Speaker 2: available to us in New Zealand, we wouldn't have to

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Speaker 2: be thinking about going up to gas, which isn't certain

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Speaker 2: by any streets or using an efficient coal and dirty

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Speaker 2: coal wh could be addressing this thing more strategically, and

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Speaker 2: that's kind of the problem. We don't keep doing these

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Speaker 2: short team fixes and saying more market will fix it

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Speaker 2: when the market has failed us, failed our industry, failed

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Speaker 2: our economy, and failing individuals in terms of electricity generation,

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Speaker 2: availability in pricing.

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Speaker 1: Richard, thanks for having a chat to us. Should wag

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Speaker 1: Staff Council of Trade Union's president.

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Speaker 2: For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive.

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