KEY POINTS:
Secret papers revealing Auckland City is continuing its drive for local government control of energy distribution company Vector is hardly surprising. The city council has objected to the governance structure of this strange bastard of the 1980s- 1990s energy reforms since day one.
And after the farcical antics of the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust in recent years, one can only wish the councillors success. By just standing still, they'll do a better job of representing consumer interests than the swirling dysfunction of recent trustees has done.
My only major trepidation about the city council's model of public ownership is the flirtation, within the options papers, with selling the power shares, once obtained, so that the bureaucrats can go crazy building new infrastructure - presumably roads, drains and the like.
That would be a betrayal of public trusteeship even greater than that of the decision of the trustees a year or so ago to privatise a quarter of Vector, and must be protected against in any enabling legislation.
The better model is to treat this prize asset as the Auckland Regional Council does its Ports of Auckland shareholding, as a source of dividends, and asset to borrow against.
The Auckland City papers were sparked off last year by the promises of one of the candidates standing in the triennial trust elections. The authors were much taken by Bryan Leyland's pledge to wind up the trust if elected, paying a one-off handout of $3000-$4000 to each consumer and then distributing the remaining $900 million to the three territorial councils served by the old Auckland Electric Power Board: Auckland City, Manukau City and Papakura District Council.
"It is anticipated that during the course of this election there will be considerable publicity around Bryan Leyland's proposal," said the report. Then the drooling began. "While there may be a number of political issues (and conflict of interest issues) with Auckland City lending support to a particular candidate, a strategy of publicly advocating for the early wind-up of the trust may ultimately lead to hundreds of millions of dollars becoming available for investment in Auckland infrastructure."
As it transpired, the council didn't publicly barrack for Mr Leyland, and despite the bribe he dangled before the voting public, he failed to get elected, polling just 4305 and trailing 16th out of 20 hopefuls. Indeed, only 19.28 per cent of 273,209 eligible voters bothered to vote, revealing widespread disinterest, confusion or disgust with the trust's past antics.
I prefer to think Aucklanders chose to reject the bribe for noble reasons, but I suspect we'll never know because most of us didn't know it was even being proposed. Still, back in 1993, we customers of the old Auckland power board saw the community value in retaining public ownership and chose not to strip the company's assets by refusing to accept a few hundred dollars apiece in shares - unlike the power consumers of West Auckland, who are now left empty-handed.
As a result of the 1993 reforms, the trust became owner of Vector on behalf of consumers until 2073, at which time the assets are to be redistributed to the three councils based on the electrical connections within each city's boundaries.
Auckland City wants to join with the other two "beneficiary" councils and persuade the Government to legislate to fast-track the handover. It wants to seduce consumers into agreeing to the proposal with a one-off Leyland handout as compensation for lost future annual dividends.
The downside of this proposition, is it whittles down the value of the remaining asset, and increases the temptation to dilute the ownership with more private share sales.
The payout proposal suggests the low regard the bureaucrats have for the rest of us. Is it too much to expect if they put up a case for keeping the assets intact to fund public works, we Aucklanders might say yes?
I would miss the Vector handout each year. But it's not as though I earned it. It just so happens my house was once supplied by power from a co-operative power company set up by far-sighted Aucklanders a century ago. The dividend is the outcome of decades of steady community investment.
As johnny-come-lately individuals, none of us are owed it, or deserve it. I say leave it in the pot for community use. Last year alone, $93 million was paid out. Enough to build the Vector Arena.
