By CHRIS DANIELS and JAMES GARDINER
The stakes have been raised in the battle for control of the Auckland power lines company Vector.
Candidates on the Powerlynk ticket are promising $650 cash to every home in Auckland if they win a majority on the five-seat Auckland Energy Consumer Trust.
The payouts would amount to a $160 million windfall to Auckland, Manukau and Papakura homes and businesses.
Powerlynk leader Karen Sherry, a sitting trustee, said that she would revise the dividend allocation method for sharing Vector's $50 million-plus annual profits equally between commercial and domestic customers.
Instead of giving businesses larger dividends - sometimes up to tens of thousands of dollars depending on the size of their power bills - Vector would give all customers the same, said Ms Sherry.
That would mean $650 each this year - assuming that the new trust could negotiate an end to legal action against it by the Auckland, Manukau and Papakura councils - and about $300 a year in future.
Consumers have not had a dividend for two years because of the legal action.
Other aspects of the Powerlynk policy include scrapping the controversial LineCare insurance scheme, under which Vector stands to make a $4 million annual profit from its customers. Ms Sherry said that unless property owners were at fault in damaging lines on their property, Vector should do repairs and maintenance free.
The key plank of the policy was continued 100 per cent trust ownership of the $1.5 billion company.
In this area, the three main tickets have distinct views. Citizens and Ratepayers accepts an element of privatisation, while Energy Auckland wants to explore a total sale or a share float, which would give Aucklanders and their councils an even bigger windfall, but once only.
The councils, as capital beneficiaries of the trust, would almost certainly argue that they were entitled to all the proceeds of any sale.
C&R has also promised to abolish LineCare and wants to make peace with the councils so the dividends can be allocated to consumers.
The current trust is made up of four C&R people, all of whom are standing on different tickets this election after falling out with the party. C&R accuses the four of wasting $2 million a year on administration.
Three of them - Michael Barnett, Stanley Lawson and Craig Little - are with Energy Auckland. Morris Brown is standing as an independent.
C&R president John Collinge, a former chairman of the Auckland Electric Power Board and briefly a director of Mercury Energy - Vector's two previous incarnations - is one of five C&R candidates.
Mr Little says the company is already privatised by virtue of its consumer trust ownership and it is a matter of determining the best way to make that ownership tangible, with cash or shares.
Voting papers go out today and the postal ballot closes on October 7.
$650 cash lure in power votes chase
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