Vote to decide who owns the lines

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Aucklanders are being urged to take their minds off the World Cup for a few minutes this month to vote for the trust that owns Vector, Auckland's $3.1 billion power lines company.

Up for debate is the partial privatisation of Vector, the biggest trust-owned asset in New Zealand, which has paid dividends worth $860 each to 285,000 power users in the past three years.

Vector bosses are cagey about future growth opportunities that could lead to public ownership being diluted, apart from hinting about expansion into Australia and building more power generation plants.

Powerlynk, the centre-left ticket contesting the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust elections, believes it is only a matter of time before privatisation is back on the agenda.

Powerlynk wants to keep the power lines company 100 per cent in public ownership.

"We believe the core purposes of the trust is to own, manage and grow the Auckland, Manukau and Papakura power lines," said Powerlynk candidate Shale Chambers.

"The only way the community can retain control over that monopoly is to own 100 per cent."

In August, the Vector board abandoned a partial privatisation and listing on the stock exchange, ending months of speculation and political fighting among trust members over how to finance the $1.5 billion purchase of UnitedNetworks.

Powerlynk says the centre-right ticket, Citizens and Ratepayers Now, has a record of selling public assets such as Auckland City's airport shares, pensioner housing and community assets.

C&R Now boss John Collinge said that the ticket planned to keep Vector in public hands, but would consider selling up to 25 per cent of the shares if Vector needed capital for something like a power station to prevent the prospect of blackouts and cold showers in winter.

"Vector's priority is to supply Auckland consumers," Mr Collinge said.

"To obtain efficiencies, we would consider expanding to other lines companies. We have already expanded Vector to own the lines in the North Shore and Wellington."

Fellow C&R Now candidate Karen Sherry said trustees were legally bound to consider any growth opportunities put to them by the Vector board.

"And considering is a lot different than actually doing.

"My job is to consider all sides of the story and consider what is in the best interests of the beneficiaries long term."

She said Vector's purchase of UnitedNetworks involved buying back New Zealand power assets owned by an American company and placing them in public ownership.

Ms Sherry has been at loggerheads with two other trustees, Coralie van Camp and Pauline Winter, over the past three years.

They won three of the five seats on the trust at the last elections, in 2000, under the Powerlynk banner.

But after a bitter split over how three years of accumulated dividends should be distributed to consumers, Ms Sherry left and began working with the Citizens & Ratepayers minority.

Ms Sherry was made chairwoman and the trust appointed Mr Collinge to the Vector board.

The disagreements continued over Vector's plan to buy UnitedNetworks.

Ms Winter and Mrs van Camp supported an "in principle" plan to consider a partial float of shares, which went against the Powerlynk manifesto to keep 100 per cent community ownership.

Mrs van Camp said she was conned by advisers into thinking a partial float was the only way of financing the deal, and Ms Winter said she voted for a resolution on September 3 last year approving partial privatisation in principle to provide comfort to the bank.

They claimed to have subsequently asked for more information on the options and fought "tooth and nail" to stop privatisation.

Mr Chambers said a lot of the trust's problems stemmed from bad governance, and Powerlynk was promising changes so there would be a "no surprises" relationship between the trust and the board.

He said Mr Collinge, as deputy chairman of both the trust and the board, was an impediment to the trust being a strong shareholder.

If Mr Collinge was re-elected a trustee and Powerlynk won a majority on the trust, it would dump him from the Vector board.