With the launch of the Frank Power Company ads, I felt optimistic. Here was an advertising campaign that appealed to my working-class sensibilities and no-nonsense approach. The ad has my favourite NZ comedian Cori Gonzales-Macuer in it, and is actually funny. There’s a dude in a funny asterisk costume leading it. 

 

Finally, a power company that understands me!

 

Then my wife pointed out that actually Frank is just part of Genesis. The sad trombone played in the background. See, it turns out that I should have read Frank’s own little asterisk pointing to the fine print. They’re just a side business of Genesis, rebranded for people like me who think they’re smart but are just suckers for advertising.

 

With this realisation, I’d like to get back on a Soapbox that I used to stand on quite viscerally and put on my best New Orleans accent a la the movie Waterboy. Power companies is da devil heemself! (Apologies to people who are actually from New Orleans). While everyone is focusing on COVID, rent prices, and vaccines, power companies continue to drain our money with constant price rises and intentionally confusing bills. You may look at all their different plans – look I can get one tailored just for me, so that I pay cheaper rates here and I can use more power at that time! Genius! Nope. Once again, they are appealing to smugness – just like casinos, power companies always win. I hate to sound like a Wellington anti-mandate festival-goer here, but the media adds to this situation. If you still watch free-to-air television, think – how many times have you seen a segment on “how to save money on your power bill?” complete with a whole bunch of tricks and tips? Probably featuring a South Auckland family who saved over $100. Then they’ll have someone from a power company saying yes these are all great tips. If you’re older like me, they show those a lot. But have you ever thought, why would this person from a power company want us to spend less money?

They don’t want you to spend less. It’s a PR exercise. The house always wins. Not your house, the power companies. By putting the responsibility back on you, making it look like you’re wasteful, they can keep putting their prices up. Yet we don’t see any benefit or upgrade in quality of service from these increases. 

 

Power companies and telecommunication companies (e.g., Spark) still have regular failures of infrastructure, rolling power cuts, and brownouts (not poop flinging, don’t worry I was disappointed too). They put the bare minimum into infrastructure so shareholders and executive staff can swim in their money like Scrooge McDuck. Meanwhile, Joe Bloggs in Te Kuiti has to make sacrifices just so that he can keep his milk cold. 

 

In my lay person opinion, power companies should be heavily regulated or owned by we-the-people (via government). Power companies have no incentive to maintain stable prices or to provide a decent service (other than a loss of customers). Until we reign them in, we will continue to be shafted.