Today I spent some time with the residents of one of the Council housing blocks in Wellington.  I really enjoy my catch ups with these groups as they give me a regular update on what matters to people who come and go on very modest incomes. And there was one resounding message.  Coming out of winter the biggest issue is power prices.  These folk are watching every dollar, and they see the moves up and down.  This has been a hard year and looking back over the last few years the increases have been large. They are not necessarily up to date with moving between companies, and the companies are generally not chasing them.  They do wonder why the government is taking such a big profit from the power companies it controls on the public’s behalf.

Phil Goff addressed this in his Labour Party conference speech, and it is something Labour is taking seriously as we put our policy together for next time.