We need to rethink our electricity market, writes one reader. Photo / Michael Craig
Power prices
Electricity costs have risen by 9% this year and continue to climb steadily. The primary reason is that the Electricity Authority seems to have forgotten that its prime objective is to provide a reliable and economic supply and ignores the evidence that our flawed electricity market has provided high prices and shortages.
There is an alternative market where an independent entity manages the market and pays generators related to actual cost of generation plus a reasonable profit. Unreliable generators get less than unreliable generators to reflect the cost of backup. It also makes sure we have enough energy in storage to cover dry years and fluctuations in wind and solar power. It tenders for new generation when needed and selects those that best fit the needs of the system at that time. It would work better than monopoly suppliers because individual generators would be open to competition rather than provided by the monopoly.
If we change to such a system, electricity prices would drop and only increase when there was a genuine increase in costs. No longer would electricity price depend on scarcity value which encourages generators to keep the system on the edge of a shortage.
Bryan Leyland, Pt Chevalier.
Unemployment
Christopher Luxon’s recent declaration that “if you can work, you should work” may sound like common sense, but in reality, it reflects a deep misunderstanding — or a deliberate oversimplification — of how our economy functions.
In New Zealand, as in many modern economies, a margin of unemployment is not a bug in the system, but a feature. It is actively maintained as a tool to manage inflation. The Reserve Bank uses what economists call the “non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment” (nairu) to keep wages and prices in check. In short, some people must remain unemployed so that others don’t get paid “too much” or gain too much bargaining power.
So, when Luxon moralises about work, he ignores the economic reality that full employment is not even the goal of the system we’re in. The idea that unemployment is simply the result of laziness or moral failure doesn’t just insult those out of work — it also conceals the truth that our economy is structurally designed to keep a certain number of people unemployed.
If we want a fairer society, we should stop shaming people for being out of work and start having an honest conversation about the contradictions in our economic design. Policies grounded in compassion and evidence — not rhetoric — are what’s actually needed.
Jeremy Shelley, Waterview.
Climate change
Tony Barker’s call for time to tackle climate change (July 4) seems an almost lost cause as we head further and further toward destruction of unbelievable proportions. Voices are quieted, no recognition given by mayors of townships facing disaster after disaster in our country. Poor international relations see us move away from people’s concerns for nature, the environment and our children’s future, linked oh so closely to this ignorance, this belief in the here and now and not the future.
Reporting by journalists and TV reporters has lessened, so the future looks grim. Who wants to hear our flooding, fires and heatwaves are caused by us through our wants and needs right now? We’re stoic people, known for our capacity to care, so why are we leaving the future to our children one they will have a hard time existing in?
Emma Mackintosh, Birkenhead.
Social cohesion
Letter writer Emma Mackintosh (July 3) refers to Simon Wilson’s opinion piece on David Seymour. In turn she accuses Seymour of attempting to win over what she calls the “bitter and twisted in our society.” Collective behaviour researcher Stephen Reicher posits that if we think of people as unreasonable then we are less likely to engage with them. If we want greater social cohesion, we need to draw on what we have in common rather than what divides us. It should not be a case of them and us because we’re all New Zealanders. We forget this at our peril.
Glennys Adams, Waiheke Island.
David Seymour
Simon Wilson (July 2) compares David Seymour’s promoting equality for Māori with American conservative William F. Buckley’s opposing the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s. Why, except as a smear in lieu of arguments? Seymour advocates equal rights for all regardless of race. Buckley was opposing equal rights for all races.
To move from rights to needs, Seymour (not that I think he addresses needs sufficiently) advocates not equality of treatment for all but support based on need. Those in greatest need, some Māori, some Pākehā, some Asians, some refugees and immigrants, deserve greatest support. Those Māori not in great need — and many Māori are thriving, some brilliantly — do not need greater support than non-Māori in great need. What is so inequitable in this that it should be compared with the iniquity in segregation and other systematic racial injustices in the America of the early 1960s?
Brian Boyd, Mount Eden.
City Rail Link
More bad news after more bad news. The CRL has been nothing but a disaster. All the disruption to the city business owners. A massive blow out in the cost, almost double. Now they tell us that patronage is expected to be half what was projected.
And to gain what, a debt the country cannot afford to save passengers 10 to 15 minutes? When I was on the Howick Local Board I submitted an alternative plan for a transit hub at New Market for the Southern and Western lines with a continuous shuttle into Britomart using existing infrastructure, which would have cost almost nothing, and it was rejected with one AT staff member saying it would not work as people would not accept changing trains.
Have these people never travelled overseas? Passengers often change trains more than once in many cities around the world.
Bob Wichman, Botany (retired councillor)
Northland expressway
Yet again we have people like Dr Simon Chapple and Julie Ann Genter who may or not even live in the top of the North Island sticking their oar in.
It’s people like myself who live in north, who have to travel over the Brynderwyn hills to access work everyday or for Whangārei Hospital treatment. We are the ones who don’t have a decent road/highway to travel on, after Cyclone Gabrielle hit the Brynderwyn hills were closed for such a very long time. The alternative was not up to handling the volume of traffic, the men who fixed the slips and did a massive amount of excavation work are to be praised.
We only have one lane north and south now, where as before we had passing lanes.
The Labour Government scrapped work on the highway north to spend the money on things that never eventuated. People are over the thought of the Labour or Greens getting back in, just to wreck the main access to the North Island. I hate to think what the tourists think of our roads up here.
These roads are a structural part of the country.
Susan J Kirton, Maungaturoto
It is Donald DUCK that has a Big Beautiful Bill.
Eric Dutton, Whangārei
Can someone please explain how Bluebridge can obtain a fit-for-purpose interisland ferry in March and have it up and running in July when KiwiRail (the Government) still has not found a shipbuilder, and if, or when, it does, any new ship will not be operating until 2029?
Ian Doube, Rotorua.
It seems quite unbelievable that Green Party MP Tamatha Paul opposes Government plans to strengthen penalties for shoplifting. This is an indirect attack on hard working and honest NZers when she says that if people don’t have enough money to buy food they are going to look towards shoplifting. Have we reached this level of anarchy when an elected MP speaks in this manner?
Dr Hylton Le Grice, Remuera.
Has anyone else noticed the explosion of pampas and woolly night shade growing alongside railway lines, roadsides, and paddocks and even in gardens and parks? At the top of the Bombays a whole paddock is now in pampas. Pampas provides a home for rats and woolly night shade causes a lot of nasty skin irritations. We need to remove these ghastly plants wherever they occur.
Judith Browne, Cambridge.
To paraphrase the timeless lyrics of the Muttonbirds’ Dominion Road, regular readers of Simon Wilson’s columns must feel they know what he’s going to say before he even opens his mouth.
Mike Wagg, Freemans Bay.
The adage that a committee is a group of people who individually think it can’t be done then come together as a group and decide it can’t be done, no better describes the Nato summit meeting where a group of people came together and collectively decided as a group something must be done.
Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay.
Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan – current rules “written in a way that a convincing lawyer could drive a bus through” – or should that be fly a helicopter through? For Ali Williams’ lawyer to liken using a helicopter to their property to someone having a BBQ, playing games or cleaning their car beggars belief. What is wrong with this council? As for erecting a giant statue of Buddha and calling it art! So glad I don’t live in Auckland.
Elaine McGlinchey, Kawerau.