EDITORIAL
Should electricity prices be next in the Government’s cross-hairs?
This week, a co-authored report from FIRST Union, the NZCTU, and 350 Aotearoa argued that, in the decade since the partial privatisation of our electricity companies, the four big generator-retailers (known as “the gentailers”) have delivered billions in excess dividends to shareholders.
Excess dividends are payments to shareholders in excess of profits earned. The report was delivered as a smoking gun; evidence that the partial privatisation of electricity generation in 2013 has delivered great windfalls for shareholders while leaving New Zealanders out in the cold and footing the bill.
Further, the union report claims these excess profits went direct to shareholder pockets at the cost of increased renewable energy generation. All the while, it is claimed, the four large gentailers have spent the past decade “generating scarcity, prioritising dividends over struggling households and the planet”.