HBPCT candidate profile - Chris Tremain

Chris Tremain

Hawke's Bay Power Consumers' Trust candidate profile - Chris Tremain

I am Hawke's Bay to the core. I love our region and want to do all I can to make it thrive and grow for future generations.

My experience as a businessman, as a Cabinet minister, and now as chairman of a number of significant companies, provide a background that can support the continued growth of Unison and HBPCT.

Lines infrastructure businesses, such as Unison, will be faced with significant disruption over the next decade as new solar technology builds momentum and provides low cost options for consumers to power their own homes and to generate power back into the grid. This will present serious challenges to the business.

Having trustees with strong commercial experience will be important to the future success of Unison and HBPCT.

Technology also provides us with the opportunity to modernise the HBPCT. For one, we can provide you the option to receive your dividend by direct credit.

We can, at your total discretion, provide opportunities for you to invest your dividend into the community. By default your dividend would still be paid to you unchanged. Modern technology also provides us with the capacity to consult more regularly and transparently with you. I believe in choice, not compulsion.

As part of growing our region I am keen to review the ownership of Unison. Not to sell it, but to consider whether there is merit in joint ownership, by all of us, of other key Hawke's Bay infrastructure, such as the airport, the port, and even possibly our water authorities. This way you, as a shared owner of Unison, would also have shared ownership across a range of Hawke's Bays' other key assets.

The benefits of a significant regional investment company would provide a very strong balance sheet, capable of investing in our region's future. Clearly this would be a major decision for us all and would not be undertaken unless there was genuine upside and strong support from the community.

I think we can modernise the HBPCT, we can provide choices for you, and we can (and should) consider how best to adapt for future challenges.