October 9, 2024 • 17 mins
A local election begins today in Auckland, though you're probably not even aware.
364,000 Auckland households and businesses can vote this month for the trust board that runs Entrust.
If this name sounds familiar to Aucklanders, it’s because the majority shareholder of Vector dishes out $350 payments to eligible electricity account holders every year.
Yet very few of us actually vote in these elections, with voter turnout hitting single digits in 2021.
Today on The Front Page, Herald senior writer Simon Wilson is with us to discuss why you should be paying attention.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer: Paddy Fox
Producer: Ethan Sills
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
CHIELDA.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
A local election begins today in Auckland. Though you're probably
not even aware, three hundred and sixty four thousand Auckland
households and businesses can vote this month for the trust
board that runs en Trust.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
If this name.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Sounds familiar to Auckland's, it's because the majority shareholder of
Victor dishes out dividend payments to eligible electricity account holders
every year. Yet very few of us actually vote in
these elections, with voter turnout hitting single digits in twenty
twenty one. Today, on the front page, Herald's senior writer
(00:57):
Simon Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Is with us to us why you should be paying attention.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Simon, First off, can you explain to me what intrust
actually is, because all I know is that I get
a three hundred and fifty bucks a year.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It's a ridiculously complicated situation, and that's one of the
problems that these things should be easy. It's a trust.
It's a community trust, which means that the customers who
are the people who use the lines that deliver power
to Auckland are the owners of the trust. Intrust used
to be called the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust. They changed
their name to the Snappier In Trust a few years ago,
(01:37):
and it owns the company that owns the lines. The
lines company is Vector. So if you look at your
power bill, you'll see there's a component in that. If
you get it from Mercury, say, there's a component in
that that says the lines charged from Vector is whatever
it is. Intrust owns most of Vector. There are no
other large scale owners of Vector. So interests and effect
(01:58):
owns Vector. And because it's a trust, it has to
have elections for its trust board, the trustees, and they
come along every three years.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Why are electricity users considered investors?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
How did that come about?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Well, it goes all the way back to the fact
that in this country power energy and electricity used to
be state owned. So in the process of the government
divesting its ownership of the whole power system in the
eighties and nineties, we ended up with some consumer trusts
and that was part of the way of saying okay,
(02:32):
private investors and come in, they can own this and
they can do what they want with these things. But
there will still be community ownership. So that's why there
are community trusts. En Trust is the big one in Auckland,
but there are other community trusts related to the Lin's
companies in other parts of the country.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You mentioned elections.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
How often do they happen and why should auckland Is
be paying attention?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
The elections happen every three years and the way in
which they are set up at the moment. Every year,
the Interrust Board for men years now has paid a
dividend to its beneficiary, so that's us the power will payers.
It pays that dividend, and shortly after it pays the
dividend on a three year cycle, we get a chance
to vote for them to do it again.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I don't suppose many people know about these elections. I
suppose what has voter turnout been like in the past.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Six years ago, voter turnout was a low seventeen percent.
Three years ago it dropped to nine percent. And one
of the issues around the election this time is that
you would think that people in charge of the elections
and effectively that is the existing trustees who were elected
in last time, you would think they'd be worried about
that low turnout, and you would think they would do
(03:42):
something to grow the numbers better, advertising that kind of thing.
They do nothing, almost nothing. So we have this very
low turnout and that suits the people who are there
because they got elected last time on a low turnout.
By and large, they are voters from the Auckland's eastern suburbs,
from Uera, epsom Cohimatmer, et cetera. They are a well held,
(04:07):
high voting lot compared to the rest of the city,
and the Entrust trustees who've been elected by those people
appear to be quite happy for that to continue.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Well should it continue?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Have they? Have?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
They been doing a good job simon.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, it depends how you look at it. Let's look
firstly at the money. Intrust has been paying this dividend
to the bill payers for a long time now. In
two thousand and six, which is when the current structure
was established, the dividend was three hundred and ten dollars
every year. Thereafter, for the next six years it fell
(04:41):
in real terms, then it grew for a little bit,
but from twenty eighteen it's been falling and falling in
real terms, so that three hundred and ten dollars in
two thousand and six nearly twenty years ago is now
three hundred and fifty dollars this year. If you look
at the effect of inflation, if you use the Reserve
Banks calculator and put three hundred and ten dollars in
(05:03):
two thousand and six into the calculator and see what
it should be worth now, they should be paying US
four hundred and eighty three dollars, not three hundred and fifty.
So actually the dividend has been declining in real terms,
and in my own view that's a bit of a
scandal that it's reducing and reducing and reducing.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Once a year intrust beneficiaries receive dividends. Dividend day, you know,
is the invalope that makes you say yes, freaksh cheers
and trust.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Have they given any explanation for that?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Well. Power is difficult and complex, but at the same time,
of course, our power bills are going up. They're going
to go up significantly next year, we're told by the industry,
and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment have advised
the government they're going to go up next year and
the year after. So we're getting a declining dividend and
rising power bills. It's pretty unsatisfactory situation.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
So the communities and residents teke At have run the
board for as long as it's been a thing. Are
they promising to do anything differently? Or do they want
to keep things as is?
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Well?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
They're not that. They promote themselves on the basis of
we give you three hundred and fifty bucks this year.
Their billboards say three hundred and fifty dollars safe with
cn R. CNR is the national party in Auckland, and
they're very comfortable with that being the key thing that
they do. And you've got to say, actually, that doesn't
look like good business practice. These are business people, now,
(06:34):
experienced business people. But if this is an ordinary company,
ordinary shareholders would almost certainly not be at all happy
with that return.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Who are the other players here? What are they promising?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
So there are seven other candidates. Two of them are independents,
one of them is a former c and R trustee
who fell out with the group and is now standing
against them. And then the remaining five belong to a
group called More for You, Better for Auckland, Better for Short.
They are largely aligned or sympathetic to labor slash green politics.
(07:08):
So that you've got straight on the left and on
the right split in this election. Thus, those two independents
and the Better Group argue that there should be a
better dividend. They argue power prices shouldn't be going up
so much, and they have a proposal to address both
those issues and at the same time increase security of
supply because Aucklanders will know that when the wind blows,
(07:32):
the power loans are in trouble, and that happens over
and over in the city. Of course, a security is
supply and at the same time also lower our emissions
because our power grid at the moment is dependent on
colon gas for a proportion of the power that is supplied.
So what the Better Group is saying is why don't
we roll out solar energy on rooftops.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
A little under a month ago, those people who are
eligible to vote received their dividend from Intrust. I've read
your piece in the Herald this week and see you're
not very happy about the timing of this.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Well, I think it's extraordinary. Effectively, what happens is that
the sitting members of the Trust board pay people, advertise
the fact that they've paid you, and then ask for
your vote. It's impossible to imagine that that would be
acceptable in a general election or a council election in
the main ways in which we exercise democracy in this country.
(08:36):
But they're allowed. It's not illegal. They're doing it legally,
But in my own view, it's far far from ethical.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Well, could national crow from the rooftops that they gave
us a tax cut and then ask for our vote?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Is it not the same thing?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah, I mean, you can call that a bribe in
a loose sense, but you've got to put that in
the context that there's a full blown political debate that
goes on in general elections about how much we should
be taxed, where the money should be spent, who's responsible
for what, all of those things. So you can put
that into that larger debate and say, okay, even if
(09:12):
you think it's wrong to promise people tax cuts for
their vote, at the same time, there is a big
political debate about it. That's very different from the entrust situation,
where almost the only thing that anybody knows about Terrust,
if they know anything at all, is oh, that's the
group that gave me three hundred and fifty bucks, full stop,
whereas the better people are saying, actually, that's just a
(09:36):
red hearing that should be bigger, that your powerbles should
be lower, and if we had a roll out of
solar we would have made a significant difference to security
supply and lowering emissions.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Well, I will say that when I googled Entrust Elections
while researching this episode, the top result is, of course
the en Trust site, and when you click on the
Entrust Elections link, a big, massive pop up ad about
the three undred and fifty dollars dividend does appear.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And when I say big pop up for that, doesn't
it absolutely feel you have seen it?
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, it's like shameless.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah, why do you think this country is so resistant
to installing solar panels?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And how could and trust change this?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
It's really interesting, isn't it, Because we've had some poor
experiences in the past. Solar was hard to install, some
of the equipment wasn't very reliable, batteries were expensive, and
the memory of all that kind of thing lingers, and
there's a whole bunch of people who think it just
won't work, just how could it work? What we are
lucky about in Auckland is that we can look across
(10:37):
the Tasman at Australia Australia has around about thirty five
percent of its rooftops now have solar panels on them,
many with batteries. Now that statistic doesn't just apply in
Queensland or wherever the sunshines all the time. It applies
in Melbourne. Melbourne has about the same amount of sunshine
hours a year as Auckland, very very similar. Melbourne has
(10:59):
thirty five percent of its roofs have sola on them,
and that's because they have incentivized people to buy the equipment,
or they have made it possible for people to lease it,
or that the power companies themselves have retained ownership and
given people the use of it. Those models are all
available in Auckland, all available to interest, and could really
(11:21):
change the game here. It would mean that there's an
organization that has done the numbers on this. It could
mean that you might pay as little as a sixth
of your current power pill thirty four cents of Killer
what hour at the moment, down to six cents killer
what hour. If you were paying off the loan to
get the equipment, it might be twelve cents an hour.
That's phenomenally different from what we currently have. So we
(11:43):
could have lower power pills and be doing our bit
for the planet and have more security of supply. Because
of course, in a storm, though it's possible your solar
panels won't work, might get blown off the roof, that's
not really likely. It's far far less likely than a
tree bringing down the powerlights. You just wouldn't have that
worry anymore.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Unplanned power rateagues are never fun, especially during a storm.
It's stressful for everyone involved. Everything Vector does during an
outage is to keep our crews and you safe and
to get the lights back on as quickly as possible.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Getting rid of power poles helps prevent serious accidents, It
makes our grid more resilient to storms and other natural
disasters wells, and it keeps our cydewalks free for people.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
And so how can Entrust help facilitate this? Can they
offer subsidies alone?
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yes, they can. They can set it up so that
they can provide the financial incentives and support for this
to happen. And it's not just domestic, aren't they. I
mean you could do it for your own roof, and
if you're flatting your land or could do it, or
you could get your land or to do it. But
it's also community groups like schools and maria and sports
clubs and community halls and so on could all do it.
(13:02):
And then industrial buildings. So you think about when you
fly into Auckland, there's hectores and hectares of empty white
rus they could all have solar on them. That would
make a massive difference. Entrust calculates they could build a
bigger connected plant of distributed energy on those commercial roofs,
bigger than Huntly, bigger than any of the South Lonlond dams.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Would that mean the end of our dividends though each year?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
No, it wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
It wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
No, it wouldn't know because now, why aren't they doing it?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Simon?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
It is such a good question, And I don't know
the answer to that except that there's an enormous resistance
to change, and there's enormous resistance to the idea that
we should be doing anything except for what is working
for those trustees at the moment. And that's a problem
for this country and lots of areas, and in this
particular area, it's a really massive problem when you think
(13:51):
about it in terms of what are we going to
do about growing climate crisis. Dunedan's just experienced at Pauling flooding.
That's the latest. We know that. It just happens and
happens and happens in this country and in other countries
much worse. America's about to get its biggest cyclone. They
think the century or is it ever extraordinary? There? We
(14:11):
do have to change. We do have to actually do
something about our emissions. We do have to do something
about the resilience of our infrastructure so that it's not
so subject to being damaged and taken out by storms.
We do have to do these things. And if we
can do them in a way that will end up
being cheaper for us, how fantastic that would be.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Well, what are the downsides of installing solar panel though.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Well, if you like the look of your roof now
and you don't think it will look so good with
solar panels on it, then I guess that might be
a downside.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
But in terms of the kind of debate sigmen, I
can see the other side of cycle lanes, right. We
love our cars, we love our space and our roads.
Cycle lanes equals drama. But solar panels, what is the negative?
Speaker 3 (14:51):
What is It's not transactional? Is it in any way,
and it's the other side of it. Of course, we
don't have a large scale solar panel industry in this
country at the moment, doesn't mean we can't build one.
Australia has an enormous one, the world leader, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I can remember that those subsidies coming through even when
I lived in Australia, so ten fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
So we're very well behind, which we sure are.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
And we like to think that Australia are nasty coal mining,
which is true of course, but actually if you look
at what Australia has done there, it is massively significant.
And you think about the hundreds and hundreds of jobs
that could be created in Auckland and then roll it
out nationwide. Then they're good jobs. There's skilled jobs, and
they're going.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
To go on. Do you think in the wake of,
like we said before, the severe weather events of last year,
and of course what's happening in the US at the moment,
we need to look at undergrounding more of the power network,
regardless of who gets in.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Undergrounding is a complicated issue, firstly because it's expensive. Secondly
because retrofitting undergrounding, taking out the wires and digging up
the streets and putting in.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
The underground's disruptive.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
It's incredibly disruptive. So the expense in the disruption make
it a difficult prospect. New subdivisions, new areas of housing
should definitely have undergrounded lines, and that is largely what
happens now. But if you're talking about existing suburbs, there's
a massive operation which would be extremely expensive, will go
straight on your power bill. And also underground lines are harder,
(16:23):
of course to service because they're hard to get it.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And you know what would be cheaper and better, Oh.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yeah, I do. Actually it's called solility.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So simon, how are we going to make people care
about this election, regardless of who they want to vote for?
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Well, you know, it's not just our job, I guess
to make people care. I would like to think that
people were listening and reading the newspaper and thinking about
these things, and I would like to think there was
growing media attention. This week, the voting papers will be
arriving in Aucklander's letterboxes and they're only going to get
a couple of weeks, a very short period time to voters. Well,
(17:00):
so hopefully it'll all ramp up over the next couple
of weeks. And I guess I should also say it's
not the whole of Auckland. Older listeners will know the
old Auckland City Council and old Monacow Council and Papakura
District Board areas. That's who it covers. So that's mainly
isthmus Auckland from Avondale all the way out to the
Perth of Thames and from Otahou North up to the
(17:22):
Harbor Bridge.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Thanks for joining us, Simon. That said, for this episode
of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
stories and extensive news coverage at anzat Herald dot co
dot z. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Seals
with sound engineer Patty Fox.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune
Speaker 1 (17:50):
In tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
CHIELDA.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
A local election begins today in Auckland. Though you're probably
not even aware, three hundred and sixty four thousand Auckland
households and businesses can vote this month for the trust
board that runs en Trust.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
If this name.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Sounds familiar to Auckland's, it's because the majority shareholder of
Victor dishes out dividend payments to eligible electricity account holders
every year. Yet very few of us actually vote in
these elections, with voter turnout hitting single digits in twenty
twenty one. Today, on the front page, Herald's senior writer
(00:57):
Simon Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Is with us to us why you should be paying attention.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Simon, First off, can you explain to me what intrust
actually is, because all I know is that I get
a three hundred and fifty bucks a year.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It's a ridiculously complicated situation, and that's one of the
problems that these things should be easy. It's a trust.
It's a community trust, which means that the customers who
are the people who use the lines that deliver power
to Auckland are the owners of the trust. Intrust used
to be called the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust. They changed
their name to the Snappier In Trust a few years ago,
(01:37):
and it owns the company that owns the lines. The
lines company is Vector. So if you look at your
power bill, you'll see there's a component in that. If
you get it from Mercury, say, there's a component in
that that says the lines charged from Vector is whatever
it is. Intrust owns most of Vector. There are no
other large scale owners of Vector. So interests and effect
(01:58):
owns Vector. And because it's a trust, it has to
have elections for its trust board, the trustees, and they
come along every three years.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Why are electricity users considered investors?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
How did that come about?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Well, it goes all the way back to the fact
that in this country power energy and electricity used to
be state owned. So in the process of the government
divesting its ownership of the whole power system in the
eighties and nineties, we ended up with some consumer trusts
and that was part of the way of saying okay,
(02:32):
private investors and come in, they can own this and
they can do what they want with these things. But
there will still be community ownership. So that's why there
are community trusts. En Trust is the big one in Auckland,
but there are other community trusts related to the Lin's
companies in other parts of the country.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
You mentioned elections.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
How often do they happen and why should auckland Is
be paying attention?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
The elections happen every three years and the way in
which they are set up at the moment. Every year,
the Interrust Board for men years now has paid a
dividend to its beneficiary, so that's us the power will payers.
It pays that dividend, and shortly after it pays the
dividend on a three year cycle, we get a chance
to vote for them to do it again.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I don't suppose many people know about these elections. I
suppose what has voter turnout been like in the past.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Six years ago, voter turnout was a low seventeen percent.
Three years ago it dropped to nine percent. And one
of the issues around the election this time is that
you would think that people in charge of the elections
and effectively that is the existing trustees who were elected
in last time, you would think they'd be worried about
that low turnout, and you would think they would do
(03:42):
something to grow the numbers better, advertising that kind of thing.
They do nothing, almost nothing. So we have this very
low turnout and that suits the people who are there
because they got elected last time on a low turnout.
By and large, they are voters from the Auckland's eastern suburbs,
from Uera, epsom Cohimatmer, et cetera. They are a well held,
(04:07):
high voting lot compared to the rest of the city,
and the Entrust trustees who've been elected by those people
appear to be quite happy for that to continue.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Well should it continue?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Have they? Have?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
They been doing a good job simon.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, it depends how you look at it. Let's look
firstly at the money. Intrust has been paying this dividend
to the bill payers for a long time now. In
two thousand and six, which is when the current structure
was established, the dividend was three hundred and ten dollars
every year. Thereafter, for the next six years it fell
(04:41):
in real terms, then it grew for a little bit,
but from twenty eighteen it's been falling and falling in
real terms, so that three hundred and ten dollars in
two thousand and six nearly twenty years ago is now
three hundred and fifty dollars this year. If you look
at the effect of inflation, if you use the Reserve
Banks calculator and put three hundred and ten dollars in
(05:03):
two thousand and six into the calculator and see what
it should be worth now, they should be paying US
four hundred and eighty three dollars, not three hundred and fifty.
So actually the dividend has been declining in real terms,
and in my own view that's a bit of a
scandal that it's reducing and reducing and reducing.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Once a year intrust beneficiaries receive dividends. Dividend day, you know,
is the invalope that makes you say yes, freaksh cheers
and trust.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Have they given any explanation for that?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Well. Power is difficult and complex, but at the same time,
of course, our power bills are going up. They're going
to go up significantly next year, we're told by the industry,
and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment have advised
the government they're going to go up next year and
the year after. So we're getting a declining dividend and
rising power bills. It's pretty unsatisfactory situation.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
So the communities and residents teke At have run the
board for as long as it's been a thing. Are
they promising to do anything differently? Or do they want
to keep things as is?
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Well?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
They're not that. They promote themselves on the basis of
we give you three hundred and fifty bucks this year.
Their billboards say three hundred and fifty dollars safe with
cn R. CNR is the national party in Auckland, and
they're very comfortable with that being the key thing that
they do. And you've got to say, actually, that doesn't
look like good business practice. These are business people, now,
(06:34):
experienced business people. But if this is an ordinary company,
ordinary shareholders would almost certainly not be at all happy
with that return.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Who are the other players here? What are they promising?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
So there are seven other candidates. Two of them are independents,
one of them is a former c and R trustee
who fell out with the group and is now standing
against them. And then the remaining five belong to a
group called More for You, Better for Auckland, Better for Short.
They are largely aligned or sympathetic to labor slash green politics.
(07:08):
So that you've got straight on the left and on
the right split in this election. Thus, those two independents
and the Better Group argue that there should be a
better dividend. They argue power prices shouldn't be going up
so much, and they have a proposal to address both
those issues and at the same time increase security of
supply because Aucklanders will know that when the wind blows,
(07:32):
the power loans are in trouble, and that happens over
and over in the city. Of course, a security is
supply and at the same time also lower our emissions
because our power grid at the moment is dependent on
colon gas for a proportion of the power that is supplied.
So what the Better Group is saying is why don't
we roll out solar energy on rooftops.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
A little under a month ago, those people who are
eligible to vote received their dividend from Intrust. I've read
your piece in the Herald this week and see you're
not very happy about the timing of this.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Well, I think it's extraordinary. Effectively, what happens is that
the sitting members of the Trust board pay people, advertise
the fact that they've paid you, and then ask for
your vote. It's impossible to imagine that that would be
acceptable in a general election or a council election in
the main ways in which we exercise democracy in this country.
(08:36):
But they're allowed. It's not illegal. They're doing it legally,
But in my own view, it's far far from ethical.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Well, could national crow from the rooftops that they gave
us a tax cut and then ask for our vote?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Is it not the same thing?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah, I mean, you can call that a bribe in
a loose sense, but you've got to put that in
the context that there's a full blown political debate that
goes on in general elections about how much we should
be taxed, where the money should be spent, who's responsible
for what, all of those things. So you can put
that into that larger debate and say, okay, even if
(09:12):
you think it's wrong to promise people tax cuts for
their vote, at the same time, there is a big
political debate about it. That's very different from the entrust situation,
where almost the only thing that anybody knows about Terrust,
if they know anything at all, is oh, that's the
group that gave me three hundred and fifty bucks, full stop,
whereas the better people are saying, actually, that's just a
(09:36):
red hearing that should be bigger, that your powerbles should
be lower, and if we had a roll out of
solar we would have made a significant difference to security
supply and lowering emissions.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Well, I will say that when I googled Entrust Elections
while researching this episode, the top result is, of course
the en Trust site, and when you click on the
Entrust Elections link, a big, massive pop up ad about
the three undred and fifty dollars dividend does appear.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And when I say big pop up for that, doesn't
it absolutely feel you have seen it?
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, it's like shameless.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah, why do you think this country is so resistant
to installing solar panels?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And how could and trust change this?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
It's really interesting, isn't it, Because we've had some poor
experiences in the past. Solar was hard to install, some
of the equipment wasn't very reliable, batteries were expensive, and
the memory of all that kind of thing lingers, and
there's a whole bunch of people who think it just
won't work, just how could it work? What we are
lucky about in Auckland is that we can look across
(10:37):
the Tasman at Australia Australia has around about thirty five
percent of its rooftops now have solar panels on them,
many with batteries. Now that statistic doesn't just apply in
Queensland or wherever the sunshines all the time. It applies
in Melbourne. Melbourne has about the same amount of sunshine
hours a year as Auckland, very very similar. Melbourne has
(10:59):
thirty five percent of its roofs have sola on them,
and that's because they have incentivized people to buy the equipment,
or they have made it possible for people to lease it,
or that the power companies themselves have retained ownership and
given people the use of it. Those models are all
available in Auckland, all available to interest, and could really
(11:21):
change the game here. It would mean that there's an
organization that has done the numbers on this. It could
mean that you might pay as little as a sixth
of your current power pill thirty four cents of Killer
what hour at the moment, down to six cents killer
what hour. If you were paying off the loan to
get the equipment, it might be twelve cents an hour.
That's phenomenally different from what we currently have. So we
(11:43):
could have lower power pills and be doing our bit
for the planet and have more security of supply. Because
of course, in a storm, though it's possible your solar
panels won't work, might get blown off the roof, that's
not really likely. It's far far less likely than a
tree bringing down the powerlights. You just wouldn't have that
worry anymore.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Unplanned power rateagues are never fun, especially during a storm.
It's stressful for everyone involved. Everything Vector does during an
outage is to keep our crews and you safe and
to get the lights back on as quickly as possible.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Getting rid of power poles helps prevent serious accidents, It
makes our grid more resilient to storms and other natural
disasters wells, and it keeps our cydewalks free for people.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
And so how can Entrust help facilitate this? Can they
offer subsidies alone?
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yes, they can. They can set it up so that
they can provide the financial incentives and support for this
to happen. And it's not just domestic, aren't they. I
mean you could do it for your own roof, and
if you're flatting your land or could do it, or
you could get your land or to do it. But
it's also community groups like schools and maria and sports
clubs and community halls and so on could all do it.
(13:02):
And then industrial buildings. So you think about when you
fly into Auckland, there's hectores and hectares of empty white
rus they could all have solar on them. That would
make a massive difference. Entrust calculates they could build a
bigger connected plant of distributed energy on those commercial roofs,
bigger than Huntly, bigger than any of the South Lonlond dams.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Would that mean the end of our dividends though each year?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
No, it wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
It wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
No, it wouldn't know because now, why aren't they doing it?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Simon?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
It is such a good question, And I don't know
the answer to that except that there's an enormous resistance
to change, and there's enormous resistance to the idea that
we should be doing anything except for what is working
for those trustees at the moment. And that's a problem
for this country and lots of areas, and in this
particular area, it's a really massive problem when you think
(13:51):
about it in terms of what are we going to
do about growing climate crisis. Dunedan's just experienced at Pauling flooding.
That's the latest. We know that. It just happens and
happens and happens in this country and in other countries
much worse. America's about to get its biggest cyclone. They
think the century or is it ever extraordinary? There? We
(14:11):
do have to change. We do have to actually do
something about our emissions. We do have to do something
about the resilience of our infrastructure so that it's not
so subject to being damaged and taken out by storms.
We do have to do these things. And if we
can do them in a way that will end up
being cheaper for us, how fantastic that would be.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Well, what are the downsides of installing solar panel though.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Well, if you like the look of your roof now
and you don't think it will look so good with
solar panels on it, then I guess that might be
a downside.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
But in terms of the kind of debate sigmen, I
can see the other side of cycle lanes, right. We
love our cars, we love our space and our roads.
Cycle lanes equals drama. But solar panels, what is the negative?
Speaker 3 (14:51):
What is It's not transactional? Is it in any way,
and it's the other side of it. Of course, we
don't have a large scale solar panel industry in this
country at the moment, doesn't mean we can't build one.
Australia has an enormous one, the world leader, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I can remember that those subsidies coming through even when
I lived in Australia, so ten fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
So we're very well behind, which we sure are.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
And we like to think that Australia are nasty coal mining,
which is true of course, but actually if you look
at what Australia has done there, it is massively significant.
And you think about the hundreds and hundreds of jobs
that could be created in Auckland and then roll it
out nationwide. Then they're good jobs. There's skilled jobs, and
they're going.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
To go on. Do you think in the wake of,
like we said before, the severe weather events of last year,
and of course what's happening in the US at the moment,
we need to look at undergrounding more of the power network,
regardless of who gets in.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Undergrounding is a complicated issue, firstly because it's expensive. Secondly
because retrofitting undergrounding, taking out the wires and digging up
the streets and putting in.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
The underground's disruptive.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
It's incredibly disruptive. So the expense in the disruption make
it a difficult prospect. New subdivisions, new areas of housing
should definitely have undergrounded lines, and that is largely what
happens now. But if you're talking about existing suburbs, there's
a massive operation which would be extremely expensive, will go
straight on your power bill. And also underground lines are harder,
(16:23):
of course to service because they're hard to get it.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And you know what would be cheaper and better, Oh.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yeah, I do. Actually it's called solility.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So simon, how are we going to make people care
about this election, regardless of who they want to vote for?
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Well, you know, it's not just our job, I guess
to make people care. I would like to think that
people were listening and reading the newspaper and thinking about
these things, and I would like to think there was
growing media attention. This week, the voting papers will be
arriving in Aucklander's letterboxes and they're only going to get
a couple of weeks, a very short period time to voters. Well,
(17:00):
so hopefully it'll all ramp up over the next couple
of weeks. And I guess I should also say it's
not the whole of Auckland. Older listeners will know the
old Auckland City Council and old Monacow Council and Papakura
District Board areas. That's who it covers. So that's mainly
isthmus Auckland from Avondale all the way out to the
Perth of Thames and from Otahou North up to the
(17:22):
Harbor Bridge.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Thanks for joining us, Simon. That said, for this episode
of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
stories and extensive news coverage at anzat Herald dot co
dot z. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Seals
with sound engineer Patty Fox.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune
Speaker 1 (17:50):
In tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.