Call on the government to address energy injustice

Our Generating Scarcity Report Update reveals that New Zealanders are missing out on their right to cleaner, more affordable energy because power companies are protecting their profits
and keeping shareholders happy.

Together, we can use this report to tell our leaders that we are done with profits over people and call on them to enact meaningful change.

We strongly encourage you to personalise your email, offering a personal insight about how you are affected/what concerns you about high electricity prices and fossil fuel generation. Even if it’s only a couple of sentences - the more personal the email, the more influence you will have!

Perhaps you’d like to include a line asking to meet with the Minister. It’s unlikely the Minister will say yes to meeting with individuals. However, we think it’s still worth including, to make the point that we care about this issue. Alternatively you might like to email and meet with your local MP. If the Minister responds to you - or refuses your meeting request - we’d love for you to send this response to us at [email protected]. We’d be happy to help prepare with any meetings too.

Send an email to ministers urging them to address energy injustice in Aotearoa:

Energy Minister Simeon Brown
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon
Minister of Finance Nicola Willis
Minister for Climate Change Simon Watts

Dear Minister,

Your government has to address some critical issues over the coming years - 300,000 New Zealanders are living in energy hardship struggling to heat their homes and live in dignity. At COP28 your government has signed onto the global pledge to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency by 2030.

I am emailing you regarding the report that 350 Aotearoa, FIRST Union and the NZ Council of Trade Unions have released: 'Generating Scarcity; How the gentailers hike electricity prices and halt decarbonisation' report (https://bit.ly/generating-scarcity-report-23).

I’m deeply concerned that the four gentailers Meridian, Mercury, Contact and Genesis have spent the last decade manufacturing renewable generation scarcity, and prioritised dividends over struggling households and the planet.

Regular New Zealanders are missing out on their right to cleaner, more affordable energy because power companies are protecting their profits and keeping shareholders happy.

I am writing to urge you to do everything that is in your power to address this energy injustice, and use your power as majority shareholders in the electricity market to enact positive change.

Specifically, I urge you to:

- Set minimum profit reinvestment targets requiring gentailers to invest in new renewable generating capacity or into other activities that provide greater energy security and affordability for New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses. Targets should be determined with reference to the need for new generating capacity and the cost of financing.  
 
- Use all dividends distributed to the Government from their gentailer shareholders be used to buy back shares of the gentailers. The ownership of any gentailer shares shall be placed in a special purpose vehicle, whose objective would be “stable, sustainable, and affordable electricity”. It would submit shareholder motions at AGMs to this end, and would require the companies to demonstrate publicly how this is being achieved.

- Purchase the remaining fossil fuel generating facilities across the country, ringfencing them for strictly non-commercial use to ensure national energy security as the electricity network undergoes its full decarbonisation process.

- Invest finance at least equivalent to the Government’s share of excess dividends distributed over the 2014 to 2023 period - $1.54 billion – be invested into household and community-owned and operated electricity generation schemes between now and 2030 to reduce reliance on the gentailers and support low-income households.

- Levy a windfall tax against these gentailers, set against the value that has been generated through the excessive use of thermal generation. The value of that windfall tax would be used to insulate homes across Aotearoa, and to reduce emissions from industrial heat processes.

Kind regards

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Call on the government to address energy injustice

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