Farrar’s dodgy statistics in energy SOE privatisation debate

David Farrar posted at Kiwiblog yesterday in response to a statement by Phil Goff on energy SOE privatisation:

So in Auckland [listed company] Contact [Energy] is cheaper than the three SOEs. The total opposite to what Goff claimed. They are in fact $178 cheaper than the most expensive SOE, not $500 more expensive… [In] Christchurch … Contact is cheaper than two of the SOEs. … In Wellington they are more expensive, but by only $13 to $148. … [In] Dunedin … Contact is cheaper than two of the SOEs.

On the face of it, that seems to be an argument that a listed privatised company delivers domestic electricity supply as cheaply or cheaper than the SOEs do. But what Farrar has done is cherry-pick only the November 2011 statistics from the Consumer Powerswitch website.

Here’s a chart from that site of the prices for the various electricity retailers to Dunedin over the last three years:

Contact actually had substantially higher prices in Dunedin than any of the SOEs for the entire period between November 2008 and August 2011.  It has been only the last four months that it has been (slightly) cheaper than Meridian and Mercury, but still significantly more expensive than Genesis.

Similarly, in Auckland, Contact was more expensive than any of the three SOEs between July 2010 & July 2011. In Wellington, Contact was most expensive between November 2008 and November 2011- the entirety of the last 3 years. And in Christchurch, Contact was most expensive between March 2011 and July 2011.

Farrar also fails to take into account the pricing of Contact’s 100% owned subsidiary, Empower, which where it provides retail electricity supply has significantly higher prices than any of the three SOEs for the entire three year period (see links to Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch prices above).

Farrar might be right to call out Goff on the $500 annual price differential he claims between Contact and the SOEs – that figure seems to me to have been either exaggerated or cherry-picked.

But to dogwhistle that privatisation will bring lower electricity prices is simply not supported by the evidence.

Incidentally, I’m somewhat suspicious about the sudden and dramatic drop in Contact’s domestic electricity prices from August 2011, just after National’s SOE privatisation announcement.  I’m wondering if this is a loss-leading exercise to gain market share before the SOEs are privatised.

Wellington Central Candidates at Aro Valley Community Centre

This is the famously ‘most fun’ candidates forum in Wellington, in the Green heart of Te Aro. It was an awesome night, the chairs were full half an hour before the stated starting time of 7.30pm, and by the time the candidates had all arrived, there was no standing room, and a build-up of late-comers hanging on the ramp outside the huge windows (all opened fully) peering in and listening to the speakers with assistance from the sound system courtesy of local Aro events manager Martin Wilson.

packed out Aro Valley Hall

The Candidates speaking were Grant Robertson (L), the sitting MP; Paul Foster-Bell (N); James Shaw (G); Stephen Whittington (ACT); Gynn Rickerby from the Pirate Party, who spoke first as he had to leave for family reasons; Reagan Cutting (Libertarianz); Laurence Boomert from New Economics Party; and the perennial Michael Appleby (ACLP), who is always such a good showman, and well-liked by Aro residents and regulars.

The candidates up against the wall ...

There was a sausage sizzle, popcorn, warm spiced orange juice, macaroons, and eventually mulled wine, all at ‘gold coin’ prices to support the Aro Valley Community Centre; the half-time break saw much chatting and slurping of various cups of beverages, and popcorn chomping.

The questions from the floor were articulate and engaging, asking Labour whether they had any policies to announce that weren’t stolen from the Greens (Grant responded with a list of prior policy launches that were ‘all their own work’), and a few goes at getting Paul to respond on sticky issues, which he pretty much dodged using the Party-approved phrases, deviating only once when asked if he supported gay marriage and gay adoption. (He does.)
James made some excellent capital out of responses to questions directed at other parties, throwing out replies that covered pretty much every policy angle the Greens own, while emphasizing the core three issues of jobs, clean rivers, and child poverty reduction.
The rest were pretty much repeating the same sentences I’ve heard on the past two nights on the Welli campaign trail, with Whittington in particular sounding like a stuck record. Appleby answered every question with a reference to industrial hemp as the wonder agricultural product of the future, saving exports, tourism, and leading to biofuels advances, all of which was received with good humour by a jovial crowd.

The audience were mostly happy and raucous, the timing of speeches was kept strictly, and enforced by water-pistols in time-honoured fashion, while a little girl held sway over the vuvuzela to sound when the speeches ran out of time; this is my home suburb, my favourite place to talk about politics, my favourite event of any election year, and this year as ever Aro Valley did themselves proud.

So, astonishingly, I am going to post a link from stuff, ‘cos they actually did quite a good write-up here, complete with some video shot during the meeting. Enjoy. Welcome to the vibe of ma ‘hood.

For no particular political reason – just because it is good

Searching YouTube a couple of days ago for the best version of Wilko Johnson’s Dr Dupree to embed in this post, I discovered something very special.

IMO, one of the great unacclaimed songs which deserves far better than its current 192 YouTube hits:

Link

Haha, awesome via @NZGreens

Phil Goff’s Asse

Sometimes, when things aren’t going right, you just can’t catch a break!

Here’s Phil Goff trying to keep his asse on a small YouTube embed.

More plans for a brighter future

Brighter Future: Plan B

RNZ Bans for Bradbury for Daring to Criticise Key

Bomber Bradbury, who many of you will be familiar with as the Left’s strident voice of the people on the War on News, has been banned from RNZ for criticising John Key. The news came out on MediaWatch on Radio New Zealand (26.30 mins in to the show).

The announcement came from RNZ CEO Peter Cavanagh, who did not elaborate other than to say that Bomber had breached RNZ’s requirements for “fairness and balance”. This is a disgrace – this is an attack on free speech. The link has been taken off the RNZ website so you cannot even listen to it now. I listened to it and it is just what Bomber said on his tv program.  Nothing exciting. The reaction is shocking.

 

I’ve been dam well thinking…

…that for the money it would cost to dam the Mokohinui, you could retire the Tiwai Aluminium Smelter and free up the generating capacity of the Manapouri Power Station.

Manapouri is owned by Meridian and almost (?) exclusively supplies Tiwai with energy. Tiwai uses some 15% of the electricity nationally, as our largest single user.

Tiwai of course contributes millions to the Southland and national  economy and employs several hundred people, so I am certainly not suggesting this is an easy fix. But the future liabilities associated with Tiwai from a GHG emissions perspective have been well documented and maybe this is the time to jump.

We don’t lose one of our last wild rivers….New Zealand gets a reliable existing energy source made available to them….and Rio Tinto can finally weasal out of operating an aging aluminium smelter running at far from full production….

just a thought…be gentle

Brash fails to nail the rats down

Don Brash promised an ACT vote of 15% when he took over their leadership. But his leadership is a sinking ship, on which he can’t even manage to nail the rats down to prevent them from fleeing.

Every current ACT MP, including the current Parliamentary Leader, has either been pushed or jumped overboard.

Make what you will of that.