KEY POINTS:
The Prime Minister has served warning on the country's state-owned enterprises that the Government intends monitoring whether they are fulfilling their legal obligation to behave as socially responsible businesses.
Since the death of South Auckland mother Folole Muliaga, Helen Clark said, she had asked officials to find out what kind of checks were being done to ensure state corporations met that requirement.
"I have asked for work to be done on that. One would like to think Mercury Energy's behaviour was the exception, not the rule. But we need to know that."
Mrs Muliaga died just hours after the electricity to her home and oxygen machine was cut off by Mercury Energy, the retail arm of state-owned Mighty River Power.
Helen Clark said she could not understand how Mighty River Power had squared its ignoring of Electricity Commission guidelines covering disconnection of vulnerable customers with that section of the State Owned Enterprises Act requiring the company to be socially responsible.
The law governing state corporations states that their principal objective is to be as profitable and efficient as comparable privately owned businesses.
But the State Owned Enterprises Act also stipulates that they exhibit "a sense of social responsibility" by having regard to the interests of the community in which they operate.
Helen Clark said the Government's first priority had been to ascertain existing responsibilities which power companies had to their consumers.
Voluntary guidelines drawn up by the Electricity Commission, the industry watchdog, explicitly recommend that where a consumer faces disconnection for non-payment, the electricity company should make reasonable attempts to contact the customer by telephone first, and advise the person of available assistance from Government and social agencies.
Having flagged its intention to make those guidelines mandatory, Helen Clark said the Government had now turned to the monitoring of the social responsibility provision in the state- owned enterprises legislation.
"If you take a company like New Zealand Post, I would say that they are pretty good.
"They have shown quite a lot of sensitivity over the years. So that might be a model".
The performance of state corporations is monitored by the Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit (CCMau), which is attached to the Treasury.
But the Prime Minister said some thought would have to be given to who would do the social responsibility monitoring as CCMau clearly had not seen that as within its purview.
"I think CCMau has probably been too narrowly focused on the economic outcomes."
