Labour's opposition to the regulation of power monopolies will delay a Commerce Commission investigation into power prices, Enterprise and Commerce Minister Max Bradford said.

The Bill, which Labour says it will oppose after doing a deal with monopoly companies, would have empowered the commission to investigate lines company charges.

"It would also have given the Commission the power to impose limits if it believed charges were too high," Mr Bradford said.

"Helen Clark says the Commerce Commission should investigate what is behind electricity prices.

"Yet her own party's action is blocking this happening. The Bill would have made it a reality. Labour would rather play politics than help consumers get the lower power prices they deserve.

"The Bill would have ensured that hundreds of thousands of people had access to lower power prices, but Labour has decided to turn their back on consumers," Mr Bradford said.

Mr Bradford said Labour was also trying to pretend power prices had gone up throughout the country.

"Wholesale power prices are half what they were before the reforms. Fifty five per cent of consumers are paying or can pay cheaper power prices than a year ago. A further 20 per cent are no worse off," he said.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>