I write this busk on a day when Auckland and Dunedin share the same 6c temperature. For Dunedin-ites this temperature wouldn’t have the element of surprise that someone living in Auckland might feel. Here on the Kapiti Coast its 11 which is probably pretty cold for us.
A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. So said Oscar Wilde. Another of his very quotable one-liners. Sorry Oscar, I think you’re wrong when it comes to electricity prices. We all know the value of being warm; some of us just can’t afford the price of electricity.
I’m the cynic who has watched electricity prices climb and climb, sometimes sharply, ever since 1986 when the Labour government ended the entity known as the Electricity Department. That department had its fault but since it disappeared there’s been no–one on the side of the consumer. There is no official curb on prices so they rise and rise to make sure shareholders get an even bigger cut, while wages remain almost the same. That’s unless you’re in the higher wage bracket and then I think they’re called salaries. Then you can probably afford to be warm.
In Otaki, householders get a payout in the way of credit against our electricity bill because we are regarded as shareholders by our local electricity supplier Electra. This helps enormously but there are still worries for someone on low wages or a benefit when the cold weather strikes.
You will have noticed the difference in meaning between the word wage and the word salary. Not so much the dictionary meaning as the social meaning. Class is alive and well in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Cleaners get wages, politicians and bureaucrats get salaries.
Some people not only get salaries but also get allowances (travel, car, accommodation) to play with. They can afford to be warm. They probably have shares in the electricity companies.
Its reasonably obvious that if minimum wages remain low and electricity prices continue to rise then adults (old and young) and children and babies are going to be cold.
As I write, people of all ages are shivering with cold. They’re not electing to be cold. They’re cold because they can’t afford to be warm.
