Grey Power Demands Govt Address Electricity Price Hike

Grey Power National President, Graham Stairmand, demanded that Government urgently address the issue of rising electricity prices. He was addressing a meeting of the National Executive in Auckland today.

He said that “Grey Power had had a bellyful of being fobbed off, and now that Government has announced a commitment to review some of its policies, then electricity should be one of the priority areas.”

Mr Stairmand said “increasing electricity prices place a severe and unfair burden on the more disadvantaged sections of the community, which includes many of our 76,000 members.”

He said that the state-owned monopolies, which generated power, were guilty of price gouging. The Government’s three state-owned generators returned record gross annual profits for the 2002 / 03 year of: $127 million Mighty River Power $105 million Genesis $172 million Meridian Energy

“Rising energy prices also have an adverse effect on industry as well as employment and it’s about time this Government showed a human face and listened to the concerns and anguish of energy consumers,” said Mr Stairmand.

© 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>>