More For You, Better For Climate's slate of candidates. Lance Wiggs (left), Dewy Sacayan, Leon Wijohn, Rohan MacMahon and Emma McInnes.
A new group that includes two venture capitalists says it will push for a higher dividend payout and greener policies if it manages to take control of Entrust, the private trust that controls 75 per cent of shares in lines company Vector - a stake worth some $3.3 billion.
"More for You, Better for Climate" has put up a slate of candidates for Entrust's five-person board, which is elected by a popular vote.
The group, which has some big obstacles ahead - keep reading - consists of Punakaiki Fund director Lance Wiggs, Climate VC Fund partner Rohan MacMahon (a former Telstra executive and strategy director for Crown Infrastructure Partners), urban designer Emma McInnes, solicitor and Zero Carbon Act specialist Dewy Sacayan, Leon Wijohn - a former Te Hunga Roia Maori o Aotearoa treasurer and Deloitte partner who now runs his own consultancy.
Each year, in September, Entrust pays a dividend to its beneficiaries - some 340,500 households in areas covered by the now defunct Auckland Electric Power Board.
The dividend was $375 in 2019 but plunged to $280 last year. Entrust chairman William Cairns pinned the fall on tax change (the amount of this year's dividend has yet to be set).
A two-week postal vote will begin on October 14.
The "More For You" ticket's most immediately obvious obstacle is the iron grip that C&R (Communities & Residents) currently enjoys over Entrust. The conservative group had the top five polling candidates at the last election, in 2018, giving it a clean sweep of the board.
More For You's odds are increased by the Labour and Green Party-aligned City Vision not standing a ticket this time (there are also several independents).
Wiggs says there was no backroom deal.
"City Vision decided not to stand anyone. We were not aware of that before we started to run," he told the Herald.
In any event, More For You's candidates lean more toward business than City Vision. Wiggs, who holds an MBA from Yale split his vote in Auckland Central between National Party candidate Nikki Kaye and the Green Party for the list at the 2018 general election.
He has advocated for better bike lanes for cyclists, but also consulted to mining company BHP in South Africa, and worked for the shark-toothed McKinsey & Company in the US.
Ane where City Vision talked about maintaining the dividend, increasing the profit payout is one of More For You's two main planks.
The other is to lean on Vector to accelerate a transition to new, cleaner technologies.
But that could cost a lot of money, and Entrust's dividend is tied to Vector's financial performance in a tightly regulated market. So is a push for a carbon-neutral lines operator compatible with More For You's policy for a higher profit payout?
"For too long, Vector has prioritised short-term dividends over longer-term investment, and analysts have already questioned the company's ability to pay the dividends as they stand," Wiggs says.
"So that makes it hard to invest in growth. But it is a challenge that needs to be met.
"Investors require dividends now but also growth in the future, and by leaning into the switch to electricity [in the vehicle market] early, Vector will be able to increase dividends.
"We think about 2030 as a key date when Auckland needs to have cracked the biggest parts of decarbonisation, and expect Vector, as the key enabler, to be showing strong results and paying larger dividends well before then."
So far, Vector has dabbled in EV fast-charging stations, and banks of batteries to store power and other green solutions. While More For You wants such efforts dramatically ramped up, Wiggs says Vector does not have to fund it all. In some areas, it can be the facilitator, while the Government or other companies pick up the tab.
"There will be a wide array of funding sources for energy generation and storage, especially in the home, as the numbers are too good to ignore," Wiggs says.
"The switch from internal combustion to electric vehicles saves thousands per year, while the switch to renewables and batteries has a similar impact. I expect electricity companies and the Government will be very interested in the benefit-to-cost equation."
C&R did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but when announcing the group's Entrust slate in June, Cairns said: "C&R has a strong track record of delivering a consistent dividend to people living in the Entrust district, and remain as committed as ever to keeping Entrust's 75.1 per cent shareholding of Vector. If our C&R team is re-elected, the current position of Entrust beneficiaries is certain."
Cairns also said today that C&R supports Vector target to be net carbon zero by 2030. "Vector is a front-runner in evolving New Zealand's energy infrastructure to deliver affordable energy in a commercial model, while delivering essential carbon reductions and returning profits back into the community," the Entrust chairman said.
In 2018, City Vision's campaign turned, in part, on raising the possibility that some or all of Entrust's 75 per cent stake would be sold. But C&R said it was also against any selldown. More For You shares the same position.
Under C&R, Entrust has applied a degree of pressure over urban design and clean energy issues.
For example, Entrust requires Vector to invest $10.5m every year on undergrounding and new energy technologies. There is currently a large-scale undergrounding project in Mt Albert around Carrington and New North Rds underway (and new developments, like the master-planned Hobsonville Point, are pole-less from the get-go).
Wiggs affects to be unimpressed. "We see the $10.5m spent on undergrounding as a red herring. One wag said it would take 1000 years to underground the lines in Auckland at the current rate. Undergrounding should be done in conjunction with Auckland Council and Auckland Transport work - and better collaboration will see better streetscapes, lower loss of trees and less disruption," he says.
Although perhaps more flinty than most City Vision candidates when it comes to financial experience, More For You is also as right-on as the Labour-Green group in some of its statements, if not more so.
"We have five leaders," Wiggs tells the Herald.
He says there is no More For You preferred candidate to head Entrust.
"Several of the candidates on our ticket are suitable as chair and we are focused on winning the election so that we are able to actually make that decision," he says.
Apathy is perhaps More For You's biggest obstacle.
In 2018, the highest polling candidate for Entrust - C&R's Karen Sherry, received just 23,958 votes. Only one City Vision candidate managed to scrape above 10,000 (Glenda Fryer, with 13,050).
Pundits said while interest was low across the board, C&R-aligned National Party voters participated at a higher level than Labour supporters.
So one of the More For You group's key aims will have to be to simply make Aucklanders give a jot about the Entrust election.
Recently, the only Entrust issue to raise voters' pulses, a fraction, has been that the dividend can no longer arrive in the form of a cheque.
"Therein lies the rub," Wiggs says.
"This is usually a very low participation election and most people don't know how important it is. We want to help people understand their vote can make a real difference to their own family and to Auckland."
More For You hopes to stir voters into life with rhetoric about bit themes like the climate crisis and potential EV revolution.
"We are already seeing the industry increase spend on new energy technologies, and Vector is no exception. They have a critical role to play to provide the grid network that enables a host of technology as well as investing in the own technology for the grid itself and more. Vector has run pilot projects for smart EV charging, grid-connected batteries in the home and a lot more. We would encourage more of this, whether funded by or facilitated by Vector," Wiggs says.
"We want to transform Auckland for the climate. Energy is a key enabler for Auckland's electrification and decarbonisation. Vector's management needs to be given free rein to accelerate existing and new plans, so that by 2030 we will be living in a low carbon future.
"Vector is a key part of that. And Entrust controls Vector."
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