Dr Geoff Bertram & Professor Robert Wade lecture in AK

Dear Fabian Friend

Dr Geoff Bertram - "Is there a regulatory compact on electricty gentailer asset prices? If so, what does it say?"

I would like to invite you to the above lecture by Dr Geoff Bertram of the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University, to be held in Caseroom3, Auckland University Owen Glenn Centre, on Tuesday 16th July at 8pm.

Over the past twenty years residential electricity prices have doubled in real terms, driving many households into energy poverty.  The Electricity Authority has argued in a recent paper that the resulting windfall profits and asset revaluations secured by the five large generator-retailers are in accordance with an “implicit regulatory compact”.  Geoff Bertram believes that in fact the original regulatory compact renders the asset revaluations illegitimate, and that asset values ought to be rolled back to historic-cost with price reductions to match.  Up to $1.5 billion per year is at stake (nearly $1,000 per year per household).  Labour and the Greens propose to claw back only about half of this from the companies, which means their policy proposals are quite conservative – certainly not extremist and revolutionary as some business spokespersons have claimed.

All welcome. Please register here.

You may also be interested in the following event.

Professor Robert Wade - "Inequality and the West."

On Monday 8 July at 6pm in the Old government House Lecture Theatre, Univsersity of Auckland, political economist Professor Robert Wade of the London School of Economics will talk about rising inequalities in the Western world, placing New Zealand in the context of international debates. He is a contributor to Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis, edited by Max Rashbrooke and produced by Bridget Williams Books, which will be launched after the lecutre in the Old Government House Member's Lounge.

Professor Wade was awarded, with José Antonio Ocampo, the 2008 Leontief Prize by the Global Development and Environment Institute, ‘in recognition of his outstanding contribution to economic theory that addressed contemporary realities and supported just and sustainable societies.

Mike Smith, Chair NZ Fabian Society

New Zealand Fabian Society
PO Box 6351
Marion Square
Wellington, WGN 6141
New Zealand

ENDS

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