Barry Soper: ZB Senior Political Correspondent on politician's responses to the sky-high electricity prices and energy crisis

Soaring energy prices have been a topic of conversation at the moment as multiple mills are at risk of shutting up shop. 

Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has issued a warning to generators, telling them to sort it out or else the Government will get involved. 

Nicola Willis and Simeon Brown have stated that they’re making inquiries into the situation, and Winston Peters has gone a step further and accused electricity generators of anti-competitive behaviour and accused them of profiteering on the backs of people who have to pay their power bills. 

Senior Political Correspondent Barry Soper told Heather du Plessis-Allan that this should end with Labour coming to the table and the supporting the government in lifting the ban they made on oil and gas exploration. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bary so Per, senior political correspondence with US Now hy Berry, Good.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Afternoon, Heather. Do you know you know when you were
mentioning lollies that you remembered as a kid. I remember Lolli's,
and I'm sure some of your listeners may, and it
probably shows my age called smokers. They were little pink.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Lollies, yes, and we used to aniseed flavor.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well, no, they were more sweet than aniseed, don't they reckon?

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah, I reckon they were an nineteen about I reckon
they were hard out aniseed.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, they were.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah. They's sort of like like I don't really know
how you said like that. They weren't that biggay.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
They were like the size of a tiny little lollies.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, okay. Did you see that the Maori party is
boycotting the Herald?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, you know, a party that commands about one point
three or one point five percent of the vote, I
would think would corner all the publicity than it can
possibly do. But their Herald two days ago ran a
full front page advertisement from Hobson's pledge talking about the

(01:01):
foreshot on seabed.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah, much of it is.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Being challenged at the moment. In the courts. So the
Maldi party because they ran because the Herald ran. What
you'd say, in a democracy, you should be able to
run an ad. They've decided, no, we're going to turn
our backs on their herald. They've already done that with
News talk z be Anyway, this party is going to
end up not being able to talk to anyone.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah, but doesn't matter because they are able to go
over the heads of all the media and talk to
social media and that's where their strength lies.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, they haven't got a lot of strength out there
in the electorate other than the Maldy seats. So if
they can maintain their presence in the Maldi seats, good luck.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
To And they're being reasonable as per usual, demanding aid
written apology to Tongue to Fenever in all publications and
voice it on all radio frequencies. Reason as per what
are the politicians saying about the energy crist.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, you know it's interesting that it was led by
Shane Jones of course this week Regional Development him issuing
a warning to the electricity generators saying if they didn't
sort it out, then the government would step in and
do so. Well, I'm not quite sure what the government
would do. But Nikola Willis she followed up. She said

(02:15):
inquiries were being made. Simmy and Brown, Well, he says
the electricity generators. He met with them this week and
he left us saying that we need to have assurances
that we're going to see a competitive market. Now, Winston
Peters went as he's wont to do a step further,
essentially accusing the generators of anti competitive behavior. I'm not

(02:38):
quite sure what they expect the generators to do other
than I guess cut their profits. So he said they're
profiteering on the backs of people that have to pay
their power bills. The end of this should result, and
it won't in Labor coming to the table and saying, look,
we banned gas exploration, oil exploration. We should allow the

(03:06):
government and support it in lifting that pan, because you know,
these are areas that New Zealand should be exploring for.
But it was interesting and I went back to have
a look at when that band was announced, and I
remember it was announced without any consultation with the sector itself.
Meghan Woods and Jason durn simply came out standing on

(03:27):
the stage with them at the time. And I've got
to say in fairness looking rather uncomfortable. There was Jason
Derned taking the microphone, Meghan Wood standing looking satisfied off
to the side, and James Sure on the other side.
And in the back was Shane Joe.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
His hand across his face, though he still got up.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
There and still was part of that announcement.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Barry, you are right. The smoker's lollies were then aniseed.
They were in fact a musk flavor according to a
lot of textures. And you'll be pleased to know that
according to this texter, they've still got them in their
car permanently. They stock them at the local countdown all Worths.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Oh goodness, I must go and buy some now. I
didn't think they are. They still caught smokers.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Big weekend ahead for Barry. Thank you, Barry, appreciate it.
We'll wrap the political week where it was with you.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
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