Electricity power prices in New Zealand are rocketing northward. The official Left-wing political party, Labour is thinking that it can make political capital out of the pain of rising power bills. The gaffe-prone leader, David Cunliffe tweeted the following:
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| Hat Tip: Keeping Stock |
He was immediately confronted with a howl of raucous Twitter ridicule.
One commentator marked an ellipsis in red to indicate the time Labour was in government (and during which time said David Cunliffe was a Cabinet Minister). Power prices rocketed up under Labour's last period of stewardship. Now the out-of-ideas Left are proposing price controls to "stabilise" electricity profits. Only a troglodyte would be seduced by such fatuous economically-illiterate alchemy.
But, it is true that electricity prices have continued to rise under the present government, which can best be characterised as the "unofficial Left-wing". Herein lies a conundrum. We are just seeing early daffodils of economic growth out of a long winter of recession. During that recession we have had a surplus of generating capacity and electric power as demand wilted. When a market is operating without artificial distortions, a surplus means prices will drop. The key question here is, Why have electricity prices not fallen away sharply under National as we lay in the depths of recession?
Doubtless the causes are multiform. One, however, stands out as a prime suspect: tax. Higher taxes on the electricity industry. Herein we see the madness of the unofficial Left-wing. Power generators are facing penalty taxes because of their carbon emissions! In other words, the global warming canard has been the pretext for systemic price rises in the electricity sector. At least two aspects of this monstrous millstone can be fingered. The first is the much vaunted, Emissions Trading Scheme ("ETS").
Power generators have faced an impost tax on their generation since 2010. They have had to buy "carbon units" and surrender them--that is, give them to regulators. This is a stupid tax which has been successful in only one outcome--pushing up power prices.
Now the unofficial Left-wing National Government stands intellectually and morally bankrupt before this monstrosity. When in opposition, the present Prime Minister roundly criticised the then Labour Government's proposed ETS. Once in government, he changed his tune and endorsed it (albeit more cautiously and slowly--and, therefore, more virtuously, or so he argued at the time). The big rationale was free-trade agreements with other nations. If we failed to go along with an Emissions Trading Scheme we were told we would fail to negotiate free trade agreements with other nations who were really, really committed to fight global warming with all the passion of that idiot, Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
Now we find ourselves deeply mired in negotiating free trade agreements with nations like the United States (never signed up to the Kyoto Protocol and does not have anything like an Emissions Trading Scheme), Japan (withdrawn from Kyoto) and Russia, (also now withdrawn). These nations do not care a fig about whether New Zealand has an ETS or not. Nor does any other nation, really. But New Zealanders labour under this costly idiocy every time they pay a power bill.
A second reason, we believe, is the "push" into renewable power generation, which is supposed to be more "green" (think, slimy oozing mould). The problem, however, is that renewable energy sources are less reliable and, in many cases, more costly and less efficient. Therefore, the paradigm of power generation in New Zealand has become far more costly than it needs to be. It has become technologically sub-standard, over-engineered, and inefficient, pushing up generating costs. Ergo, prices have risen--in a recession when there have been generation surpluses. Wait until consumption increases under the economic recovery now underway. Electricity prices may well double again, or triple from present levels.
Behold the madness our politicians have wrought--along with all those who jumped on the global warming bandwagon to the costly detriment of us all.
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