KEY POINTS:
Tighter regulation of state-owned electricity retailers won't stop "tragic one-off" situations like the death of south Auckland woman Folole Muliaga, the National Party says.
Yesterday the body of 44-year-old mother was laid to rest, after she died last week just hours after power was cut to her Mangere home -- shutting down her oxygen machine.
Cabinet will meet today to discuss whether voluntary guidelines, which suggest retailers talk to welfare agencies before cutting the power of vulnerable customers, should be made mandatory.
But National's energy spokesman Gerry Brownlee today said the industry was already heavily regulated and the State-Owned Enterprises Act required companies to act responsibly.
"You've got a law that hasn't affected this situation so I don't think a regulation will make much difference either," Mr Brownlee said on Radio New Zealand.
He said companies should instead publish the guidelines they currently used.
"Remember that this is a very very tragic one-off situation and it occurred because there hadn't been a payment and because electricity in New Zealand is now very very expensive."
Mr Brownlee said in seven years the current Government had failed to address this issue.
He believed more electricity generation rather than fixing prices or other regulation was the answer.
The power was cut off at Muliaga family home on May 29 because Mercury Energy said the family was overdue with its bill. The latest bill had an outstanding amount of $168.40.
She died a few hours later.
Mrs Muliaga had a condition where the heart muscles were weakened and when she was discharged from Auckland's Middlemore Hospital on May 11, she had with her an electrically powered oxygen machine to help her breathe.
Miss Clark said at the weekend she was still shocked by the incident and officials were working to see if regulations should be brought in.
"I was very shocked... It is not good enough for a retailer to tell a family to go off to a social agency. I actually think a company needs to alert the social agency," she said.
Miss Clark said Mercury Energy and its contractor had committed an inexcusable chapter of errors.
"We have set up guidelines and protocols so they do not happen ... I don't believe the retailer and the contractor working for them acted in either the spirit, or even probably the letter, of those guidelines and that is why we need to toughen it."
A lot of vulnerable individuals and families were already struggling to keep their head above water and requiring them to "self identify" to companies was sometimes too onerous given their circumstances.
"That's why we come back to saying should there be a greater obligation on the retailer to be proactive and contact a social agency before disconnection," she said today on Newstalk ZB.
"I think there is no question that these guideline and protocols have to be stepped up.
"Now, we are going to look today at what the range ways of doing that are -- whether it's through the Government policy statement that goes to the Electricity Commission, through regulations, whether it's through rules -- but I'm convinced better can be done than was done in this case."
- NZPA
