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Speaker 1: You've got a group of influential organizations who've penned an

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Speaker 1: open letter to the Prime Minister calling for immediate action

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Speaker 1: on electricity. This went into the papers yesterday. Signatories include

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Speaker 1: the likes of the Auckland Business Chamber, the EMA, Consumer

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Speaker 1: New Zealand and also the Major Electricity Users Group. Karen

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Speaker 1: Boys is the executive director of that group and with

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Speaker 1: us now, Hey Karen, good morning, how I'm well? Thank you?

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Speaker 1: Is it getting urgent?

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Speaker 2: It is getting urgent. And the reason we're calling for

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Speaker 2: it now is the government has its report from Frontier Economics.

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Speaker 2: So we've completed the independent review of the electrist market

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Speaker 2: and it's with the Minister of Energy now to she

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Speaker 2: read this report, take in the findings and make some

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Speaker 2: bold action.

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Speaker 1: Okay, why are you guys putting an open letter in

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Speaker 1: the papers when he's already got the report. Are you

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Speaker 1: worried he's not going to do what's in the report.

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Speaker 2: What we need is some change that's more than just incremental.

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Speaker 2: I said. We've seen some positive small steps, but we're

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Speaker 2: not seeing the action to address the underlying issues. I said.

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Speaker 2: We've got a drive. We've got a reasonably good winter,

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Speaker 2: I said, We've got some rain here which you'll get

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Speaker 2: us through winter twenty five, but we need to make

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Speaker 2: sure we address the underlying issues like not enough generation,

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Speaker 2: I said, concerns with prices continue to increase, market power issues.

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Speaker 2: We don't have an energy strategy, I said. There's a

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Speaker 2: lot of things that we definitely want to see action

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Speaker 2: on and as soon as we can.

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Speaker 1: Right, okay, we've been talking about the not enough generation

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Speaker 1: for ages. The way that the market is set up,

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Speaker 1: it kind of leaves us in this position and will

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Speaker 1: always leave us in this position. So what do you do.

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Speaker 2: There? Definitely needs to look at incentives of how we

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Speaker 2: bring on more, I said. We have a build behind

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Speaker 2: rather than a head, so we certainly would look at

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Speaker 2: mechanisms to help that. Encouraged to build a heat Also

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Speaker 2: that I think more agreements between particularly the government for

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Speaker 2: a start, could be purchasing from new generators for their

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Speaker 2: needs to bring costs down for a start. We also

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Speaker 2: need to look at the funding models, I said, even

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Speaker 2: the transmission of distribution. I said, we tend to build

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Speaker 2: just in time. We need to look at how can

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Speaker 2: we actually start funding this and share the cost of

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Speaker 2: future generations. And then some ideas starting to be talked about,

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Speaker 2: similar to what we did for Bold Band.

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Speaker 1: Do we need a structural breakup?

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Speaker 2: There's definitely a lot of concerns about the sector, and

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Speaker 2: said a lot of the independent retailers have raised concerns.

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Speaker 2: Our view is that the issues are really on the

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Speaker 2: supply side of the market, so we need to look

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Speaker 2: at that first, saying that though the Frontier report should

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Speaker 2: be providing some insight into the market structure and whether

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Speaker 2: it's the best option to give us the supportable energy.

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Speaker 1: Karen, do you know what's in that report?

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Speaker 2: No? I wish I did.

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Speaker 1: I think we all do. Hey, Okay, just rate the

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Speaker 1: chances that Simon Wats the Minister, actually does something that

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Speaker 1: will be sufficient.

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Speaker 2: He's certainly understanding the issues and he's been out there

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Speaker 2: talking to stakeholders, including ourselves, and I said, seeing the

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Speaker 2: issues that we're seen with businesses, closing the concerns with households.

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Speaker 2: I think he realizes that the action that we're taking

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Speaker 2: is helping, but it's not moving the dial.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Karen, thanks very much. Jolliam Morning, Karen Boys, executive director,

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Speaker 1: Major Electricity Users Group.

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