“Unleash The Nation’s Energy” – Build the Nation

Build The Nation’s Richard McIntosh says electricity is a defining issue of General Election 2026.

“New Zealand’s electricity market symbolises the failures of the era of privatisation, contracting out and selling off,” says Mr McIntosh. “Politicians told the public competition between electricity companies would lower prices, but they became unaffordable instead.

Politicians said privatisation would increase electricity supply and reliability, but a cartel of four gentailers now stands over the nation, gouging prices and crushing innovation.”

Complacency and lack of will from political parties of the left, right and centre has made the problem worse. Genesis, Meridian, Contact and Mercury recorded a half-billion dollar profit in six months, with barely any comment from the big political parties. The gentailers are now so big, and the dividends on profit they pay out so addicting to governments, that politicians would rather ignore the problem and take the money.

“When governments surrendered the power to set the course of the economy, big interests like the gentailer cartel stepped in and did it for them. Genesis, Meridian, Contact and Mercury are now in charge, not the government. And the results are clear: a chaotic, unreliable electricity system based on underinvestment and overpricing,” says Mr McIntosh.

New Zealand’s gentailer cartel is a dead weight on the nation, crushing innovation and driving private enterprise offshore. Decisive government action to tackle the market power of the gentailer cartel is the first step to unleashing the nation’s energy.

“As I said last week,” added Mr McIntosh, “governments need to get off the couch and do something useful. Only the power of government can wrest control of the nation’s economy back from Genesis, Meridian, Contact and Mercury. And government needs to go further, lifting restrictions imposed on regional lines companies, allowing them to build new electricity generation – and new specialist workforces – in the provinces.”

“Unleashing the nation’s energy is a priority,” Mr McIntosh said. “But first things first, we need to put the era of privatisation firmly behind us.”

https://www.buildthenation.nz/