The Daily Blog Open Mic – 20th July 2024

1. Will New Zealand’s Climate Adaption Plan cost you your home?

   A must see discussion with Tanya Lees and Carrie Evans from Kapiti CALM New Zealand

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3ns8UzyLRI

2. ‘Global tech crash opened like a Hollywood disaster film. So how does it end?”
   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/522655/global-tech-crash-opened-like-a-hollywood-disaster-film-so-how-does-it-end AND elsewhere.
   Not really into popcorn but I could see this happening 20 years ago.
   All eggs in the same basket (not unlike China, cows and milk powder); the pretense of competition all the while tending to monopoly/duopoly; inadequate testing (such as in a development environment mirroring as close as possible to a production one; seriously ‘CLEVER CLOGS’ people; and cost accountant micro-mangerialists interfering in technical issues (INCIS/ Planwise, etc., etc., etc. ………….); (Boeing anyone?); and incredibly overpriced IT projects (such as a gun register)

   I hadn’t realised just how bad the muppetry had become in NZ.
   JESUS wept. I thought there was some sort of all-of-gummint IT oversight agency (SSC/PSC maybe.)

3. Dear me OwT as you state there are so many disappointments enacted around NZ/AO. Just think of it like a giant mummers* play, or similar to one of Shakespeares (he was pretty much up on the political and emotional ploys of his day. Actually when tiring of the drama, read one of his sonnets as they are rather poignant, the ones I’ve read anyway. Try 145 which is about reconciliation I think. https://pionline.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/shakespeares-unloved-sonnet-145/)

   Historically, mummers’ plays consisted of informal groups of costumed community members that visited from house to house on various holidays. Today the term refers especially to a play in which a number of characters are called on stage, two of whom engage in a combat, the loser being revived by a doctor character. [This seems applicable to our present state!]
   Mummers’ play – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Mummers’_play

4. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/522662/bodies-of-fallen-climbers-finally-recovered-from-everest-death-zone
   All these men? wanting to strain every sinew to climb up dangerous inclines into the sky like others have done. If they want to get to heaven they could go on rehabilitation projects into countries hit by disasters, where they can feel like real gods and swank around like colonisers but at same time do some good and go home. Soon they won’t find enough snow on Everest to support them. Perhaps it should be a sacred and special place for very rich people to go and die in with appropriate accompanying regal accoutrements.

   New colonisers at play. See Tasman where UK star Noel Edmonds has settled, like snow! But while he feels he will stay till hell freezes over, the locals are getting hot about it. Pressure to sell with carrots/carats, oblation, lofty patronising and finally aversion by local residents.
   May 2022 Noel Edmonds Buys Properties near Nelson https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/nelson-mail/20220507/281621013918462
   2022 https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/uk-tv-celebrity-noel-edmonds-among-the-rich-listers-buying-up-homes-in-nelson-tasman-41783
   Nov.23 https://metro.co.uk/2023/11/04/the-idyllic-village-colonised-by-noel-edmonds-15000000-estate-19773971/
   2023 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/03/noel-edmonds-spat-with-council-new-zealand
   28 Oke 23(? that is) https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/17ipxxh/youre_the_enemy_noel_edmonds_cycleway_rant_and_a/

5. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/522672/crowdstrike-probably-didn-t-test-update-behind-global-it-outage-experts
   This heading makes me think of Fujitsu and the ex UK great Post Office disaster when it was privatised and computerised. Once we connect with worldwide systems and drop individual human input and control into transactions we give away our autonomy and increase our vulnerability.

   See this – 16 years!
   From 1999 to 2015, Fujitsu’s faulty accounting software aided in the prosecution and conviction of more than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses who were accused of theft or fraud when the software wrongly made it appear that money was missing from their branches.20 Hān 2024
   Fujitsu Bugs That Sent Innocent People to Prison Were Known …
   WIRED https://www.wired.com › Security › Ars Technica
   and
   Fujitsu role in Britain’s Post Office scandal could have severe reputational consequences, analysts say. Between 1999 and 2015, a fault with the company’s Horizon computer software used by the Post Office resulted in more than 700 sub-postmasters being subjected to false prosecutions.23 Hān 2024
   Post Office scandal: Fujitsu role in could have reputational …
   CNBC
   https://www.cnbc.com › 2024/01/23 › post-office-scanda…
   and
   The British Post Office scandal, also called the Horizon IT scandal, involved the Post Office pursuing thousands of innocent subpostmasters for apparent financial shortfalls caused by faults in Horizon, an accounting software system developed by Fujitsu.
   British Post Office scandal – Wikipedia
   https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › British_Post_Office_sc…

   https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/13/business/uk-post-office-fujitsu-horizon-scandal/index.html
   Prison. Bankruptcy. Suicide. How a software glitch and a centuries-old British company ruined lives

   Jan 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/19/fujitsu-accountable-post-office-scandal-too-important
   Fujitsu will never be held accountable for the Post Office scandal. It is too important to this government.

   Post Office lied and threatened BBC over Horizon …
   BBC https://www.bbc.com › … Whakamāoritia tēnei whārangi
   11 Hān 2024 — Senior Post Office managers briefed the BBC that neither their staff nor Fujitsu – the company which built and maintained the Horizon system

   Fujitsu bosses knew about Post Office Horizon IT flaws …
   Computer Weekly https://www.computerweekly.com › … Whakamāoritia tēnei whārangi
   19 Pēp 2021 — A former senior developer who worked for Fujitsu on the Post Office IT system that led to subpostmasters being falsely accused of fraud, has …

   Bugs Beware: UK Post Office Scandal Demands Software …
   Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA)
   https://cepa.org › article Whakamāoritia tēnei whārangi
   30 Hān 2024 — Hundreds of innocent UK postal employees went to jail because of faulty accounting software. The bugs should have been disclosed.
   [Has this some relation to Brexit move?]

   Provider of faulty computer system apologizes to hundreds …
   AP News https://apnews.com › … Whakamāoritia tēnei whārangi
   16 Hān 2024 — Fujitsu, the company whose faulty computer accounting system resulted in the wrongful conviction of hundreds of Post Office branch managers …

6. https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2407/S00113/fonterra-exposed-as-major-player-in-global-attempts-to-undermine-climate-action.htm
   July18/24 Greenpeace Aotearoa is raising the alarm about Fonterra’s role in derailing international climate action. A new investigation has uncovered that globally, large agribusiness corporations are deploying the same playbook used by Big Tobacco and Big Oil to thwart regulations meant to protect the public interest.

   The new report, entitled The New Merchants of Doubt, was released by Netherlands-based Changing Markets Foundation today. It analyses the actions of 22 of the biggest meat and dairy companies across four different continents, and it specifically highlights Fonterra and the New Zealand livestock industry as key players in an industry-wide strategy to delay regulation of emissions from animal agriculture…

7. Electricity duplicity – Why your electricity charges are sky-rocketing.

   Step back three years to a press release by Minister Megan Woods (Labour) and we see the true duplicity of the privatized electricity industry in which the state continues to play a pivotal role. The Minister’s statement is in italics. My comment is interspersed in regular text.

   17 September 2021
   Power bill changes bring fairness to charges

   A key recommendation of an independent panel to make electricity charges fairer across all households will be put in place, the Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods has announced.

   How independent was this panel? The privatized retail electricity retailers were heavily represented in a body supposedly intended to direct their conduct of the electricity market. It is a classic story of state-capital relations in the privatized New Zealand economy where monopolistic suppliers are invited to tell the government how they should be regulated, if at all.

   “Phasing out the regulations on ‘low-use’ electricity plans will create a fairer playing field for all New Zealanders and encourage a switch to electric technologies,” Megan Woods said.
   The regulations will be phased-out over five years, starting from 1 April, 2022, with support for households who might be affected by the changes.
   Currently, the cost of delivering electricity through lines charges to those on low-use plans is supplemented by other households on standard-use plans.

   “Supplemented” is not the correct word to use here. “Subsidized’ might be, except that it would not be true in this instance and so “supplemented” was used instead. The “low use” charges provided the option of consumers paying a lower fixed cost (daily charge) and a higher unit rate for electricity actually used. People on the “standard” plan (actually a minority of consumers) paid a lower rate per unit of electricity used and a higher fixed daily charge. There is nothing inherently unfair about granting such choices to consumers. But why do we have daily charges in the retail electricity industry at all, when we do not have them in grocery or hardware stores? The standard capitalist business model is that the capital and operating costs of a business are covered by or included in the unit cost of the product. When we buy a loaf of bread from PaknSave the cost of building and running the store and its distribution system – trucks, buildings and so on – is included in the price of that loaf of bread. There are some exceptions to this rule. For instance Costco supermarket requires customers to make an initial capital contribution in the form of a membership fee. However this is a one-off charge, not a daily charge, and anyone who lacks the ability to pay it can go to a PaknSave or Countdown supermarket instead. Thus there is some degree of freedom of choice in how we shop for groceries, at least in the larger cities. That is no longer the case in the electricity market. All taxpayers combined to make an initial capital contribution to the New Zealand electricity network in the years before 1984, and all new homeowners make a capital contribution when their home is connected to the electricity grid. The problem we have now is that a monopolistic electricity industry is imposing a large fixed daily charge on top of those capital contributions and is determined to allow no alternatives. In brief, the combination of daily charges and variable charges is not normal market practice and neither is it logically justifiable. Modest daily charges were tolerated by the public, but the massive 600% increase being “phased in” goes against the market choice of at least 59% of electricity users. The very fact that it needs to be “phased in” over a period of years is acknowledgement of just how unpalatable this change is to the majority of electricity consumers.

   During the phase-out, about 60 per cent of households are likely to benefit from lower power bills.

   Actually households have not benefited at all. Over the past three years electricity prices have risen remorselessly for all regardless of which plan consumers are on as the state and private investors seek to maximize their profits. There was never any genuine expectation that the “phase out” would lower power costs. The intention was always to increase costs to the consumer and revenues to the electricity companies.

   The 2019 Electricity Price Review panel found the low fixed charge regulations are poorly targeted and are not equitable – or fair to everybody – and recommended the change.
   “While the low fixed charge regulations were intended to help some struggling households, they can put more of a financial burden on those who don’t qualify for low fixed charges, particularly larger families and those living in poorly insulated homes who have higher electricity needs and have to pay the much higher standard fixed charge,” Megan Woods said.

   This is Megan Woods at her most disingenuous. If you want to help large families living in poorly insulated homes, you build them properly insulated homes. You do not make it prohibitively expensive for them to buy electric power by dramatically increasing daily charges for electricity. If low income families could not afford electricity at 2021 prices, how will they afford it when daily charges are raised by a factor of six?

   About 59 per cent of households are now on low fixed charge plans, so that means those on standard-use plans are charged more to make up for the under-recovery of fixed charges from those on the lower rates. This change will mean the sector can implement new, fairer pricing plans for distributing electricity.
   “Ultimately, this will help the industry to more efficiently manage the load on the network during peak times, avoiding costly network upgrades and helping to keep prices lower for consumers,” Megan Woods said.

   The truth is that networks have maximum scope to manage demand at peak times through variable pricing when the entire cost of electricity is in the form of variable unit charges. There is nothing fair in daily charges so high that they constitute a barrier to the poor and thereby limit their access to electricity, while giving wealthy consumers unrestricted access to cheaper electricity. It gets worse than that. The industry gave free electricity to well heeled owners of Tesla and other electric vehicles. No daily charges. No nothing. Meanwhile the poor are accused of not carrying their share of the burden while actually paying more than the standard rate for electricity.

   Minister Woods says there are some perverse outcomes from low fixed charge regulations.
   “Wealthier households with low fixed charges have more options to reduce their power use through energy-saving measures like double glazing, smart appliances and solar panels.
   “But low-use households who are also low-income households can under-heat their homes to save on power bills because their variable rates on electricity use are high,” Megan Woods said.

   The only perversion here comes courtesy of Megan Woods herself. “Low-use households who are also low-income households” are by definition comprised of people who are of necessity frugal and conscientious in their use of electricity. When daily charges are increased they will have even less ability to heat their homes, and that is exactly what we are finding now. Wealthy people always have more options. That is the nature of an unequal society. You can’t correct that situation of inequality in wealth by increasing the fixed charges upon less wealthy households and it is ridiculous of Megan Woods to assert that you can.

   “High variable rates also discourage households from switching from higher carbon technologies like gas heating, to low carbon technologies like EVs and heat pumps.

   Now we are getting to the nitty gritty. The new distribution of costs, if “fairly” applied would help those with electric vehicles and heat pumps in every room, not to mention air conditioning, heated spa pools and electric patio heaters. The government’s plan is to increase the demand for electricity among the 41% of more privileged consumers, and thus to increase the profits of the electricity retailers, all at the expense of the poor.

   “Cleaner, low emissions technologies are important for achieving our goals to have net zero carbon by 2050. We need regulations that make it easier for people to switch from fossil fuels to electric alternatives, not harder,” Megan Woods said.

   If honestly applied the changes would make it easier for high income households to electrify, but would make it harder for low income households to do so. But there has never been any serious intention to apply the changes in an honest way. The whole process has been marked by mendacity, casuistry and dissembling. No domestic consumer has benefited. Woods is also being dishonest when she suggests that “net carbon zero” is a motivating factor. Any increase in electricity consumption in New Zealand can only come from fossil fuel generation, while renewables provide the baseline supply. In this situation we can only move towards net carbon zero by reducing energy consumption, and low daily charges with higher unit charges are one way to minimize excess electricity consumption. The problem is that reduction of demand and consumption is the last thing that the electricity industry wants because that implies reduction of revenues, and that is why they are trying to increase fixed charges to protect their profits at the expense of the most vulnerable New Zealanders.

   The electricity sector is developing a $5 million power credits scheme to help with the transition for some households on low fixed charges who may face higher power bills. Details on the scheme are being finalised.

   Like the “phase out” strategy, the transitional “help” to some poorer consumers is an implicit acknowledgement that the changes hurt low income families. The plan is to ease their transition to a harder reality, rather than to spare them that reality. The “compassion” of the electricity industry is shown by only slowly tightening the screw on the poor.

   Now that the changes are in progress, the electricity industry is trying to shift the blame onto government, while government, like Pontius Pilate washes its hands of the whole business claiming that electricity retailers are free to abolish or lower daily charges if they see fit. Like two criminals charged with the same crime, they blame one another when the truth is that both are culpable. Government and private capital are colluding in this savage attack upon New Zealand’s cost of living and quality of life. Government gave a nod and a wink, and the electricity industry has gone for the consumer’s throat. Before Megan Woods approved the electricity industry plans in 2021, electricity prices in New Zealand had been rising only slowly. Immediately after she gave her approval, prices accelerated rapidly and have continued to do so in the three years since.

   Genesis Energy is one among many that try to blame government, saying: “The government owns 51% of power companies like us, Meridian and Mercury, due to this we are phasing out of the Low User Plan” implying that the government (in the first instance a Labour government, now the National led coalition government) is using its shareholding to force Genesis, Meridian and Mercury to phase out the Low User Plan which made electric power more affordable for poor families who were prepared to limit their use.

   Genesis is suggesting that the New Zealand government is using its 51% shareholding to deliver a sharp slap in the face to low income households, and is insisting that government is entirely responsible. That is simply untrue. To be blunt it is a lie. Government has not given direction to Genesis Energy. The board and management of Genesis Energy made that decision themselves with the sole motive of increasing revenues and profits. Government allowed the high daily charge to be brought in because it has a financial interest in higher profits from the energy retailers, so it is culpable, but government did not make it happen and private capital cannot be so easily let off the hook. The deregulation of fixed charges was a Labour government initiative, and the National led coalition government is only following Labour’s lead – as it would. In fact there is a cosy relationship between the government as shareholder, the government as regulator, the private shareholders and the management of the electricity retailers all conspiring together against ordinary New Zealand households. Government is profiting from the new high daily charges, but it is the companies themselves which have imposed those increased charges.

   Domestic electricity supply is a conspiracy between the state and private capital in which they divvy up the profits of super-exploitation on a fifty-fifty basis, and structure the charging systems so that the poor pay a higher unit price for electricity than the rich. The wealthier you are, and the more electricity you are able to consume, the less you pay on average per unit. This whole system sits within a murky legal environment saturated with official disinformation, obscurantism and electricity supplier strong-arming of their customers.

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