KEY POINTS:
More people believe that the family of Folole Muliaga should take responsibility for her death than the power supplier who switched off electricity to her oxygen machine, a Herald-DigiPoll survey has found.
The poll was taken before revelations that the Muliaga family had sought help from Mercury Energy about their power bill weeks before the death of Mrs Muliaga.
Asked who should take responsibility for her death, 40.6 per cent of the 703 people questioned said Mrs Muliaga's family should.
A lesser 22.3 per cent pointed the finger at Mercury Energy, while 5.1 per cent thought that health authorities should take responsibility for not alerting Mercury Energy to Mrs Muliaga's medical condition.
She died hours after Mercury disconnected power to her South Auckland home, where she was using an electrically-operated oxygen machine.
The case attracted worldwide media attention and spurred a strong response from Prime Minister Helen Clark, who yesterday appeared unimpressed that the first she knew of the Muliagas' attempt to negotiate a deal with Mercury was when she saw it on television.
"[It] does seem strange given that the Minister for State Owned Enterprises did ask for full accounting from Mighty River Power and Mercury," Helen Clark said.
Mrs Muliaga's husband attempted to talk to Mercury about the family's power bill when his wife was in hospital but got nowhere because he was not the account holder - she was.
The Prime Minister said it was "a ridiculous state of affairs" to think that somebody who was ill in hospital had to phone to talk about the electricity bill.
"I hope it's one of many things which Mercury is putting right with its measures currently."
Asked if the situation was a case of the Privacy Act being misused, Helen Clark said that in her experience people often did hide behind the legislation without actually checking whether it was a barrier.
"This has been quite common in officialdom, public and private," she said. "I would seriously question how big a barrier that was to Mercury Energy actually making some practical arrangements."
The Prime Minister's response to the Muliaga death appears to have split the public.
Asked for a response to the poll result showing that many people thought the Muliaga family should take responsibility, a spokesperson for Helen Clark said there were many factors involved.
"Helen Clark's response was a humanitarian one about the grief felt when a family, with someone so ill, had the power cut off."
The DigiPoll survey also asked people to rate the way Helen Clark had handled the aftermath of Mrs Muliaga's death, and 17.3 per cent of respondents said she had handled it well. By comparison, 16.9 per cent thought the Prime Minister had handled the matter badly.
The largest overall group, 19.8 per cent, said the handling had been satisfactory.
The Government, meanwhile, has completed the drafting of a bill which would give it the power to regulate disconnections if the favoured approach of strengthening guidelines around vulnerable consumers does not prove successful.
Existing guidelines for electricity providers are voluntary, and work is under way to strengthen them.
If electricity suppliers do not abide by the new, stronger guidelines, the Government is giving itself the option of going further and regulating.
- additional reporting: NZPA
