Kiwi families are finding it hard to make ends meet at the moment.
Prices are soaring ahead of wages, with the cost of lamb, milk, cheese and vegetables all up 10% over the past year.
The last thing Kiwi consumers need right now is their power prices going up at an even faster rate.
That is exactly what will happen if National sells off our valuable state-owned electricity companies to private buyers and foreign investors.
Energy experts say that since 1998, prices charged by privately-owned companies have increased around a third more than those charged by state-owned companies.
Private investors want to ramp up the return on their investment. That means increasing the amount we are charged for keeping our lights on and our homes warm. Putting it bluntly, all of us will end up paying through the nose for power.
Kiwi voters have a clear choice in this election. National will sell off Kiwi-owned assets that return dividends to the community, which are used to pay for essential services like health and education.
Private mismanagement
Labour will put a stop to asset sales. Labour will fight for a fair go for consumers who are already paying too much for their electricity.
We cannot afford to be put in this position down the track, trying to come up with the money to buy back our assets. Labour had to do that in the past with KiwiRail and Air New Zealand when they were run into the ground by private interests after National sold them off.
Once the companies are sold, they will likely be lost forever as assets, which the community owns and benefits from.
National argues that it has to sell our strategic assets to pay for the rebuild of the Canterbury region. But the truth is that it was planning the sell-off long before the devastating quake struck in February.
National argues it has to sell our assets because we have a debt problem. But that doesn’t make economic sense.
Our state-owned electricity companies generated dividends of over $700 million to New Zealand taxpayers last year. That is a return of about 7.6%. If we sold them and used the proceeds to pay off debt, we would save around 5.5% in interest rates but lose the 7.6% we were getting from dividends.
National argues selling off our assets will allow mum and dad investors to buy into them. But we all already own these assets.
Flight of Capital
Not many of us have lots of spare cash to buy shares. Only those top earners who are reaping hundreds and thousands of dollars a week in National’s tax cuts are likely to benefit or the overseas investors who will be more than keen to buy a chunk of New Zealand’s strategic assets.
We know from history, like when National privatised Contact Energy in 1999, that the shares will end up in foreign hands. We also know from that experience that power prices will skyrocket as a result.
Labour will keep our assets Kiwi-owned. We will look after Kiwi consumers and taxpayers, not private and foreign shareholders.
This will be a key issue for Labour this election year. We need your support in our campaign to stop asset sales and the threat of ever rising power prices.
Phil Goff is Leader of Labour Party and the Opposition. The above article is exclusive to Indian Newslink ©
