‘Struggle For Control’

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30499, 22 July 1964, Page 3

‘Struggle For Control’

(N.Z. Press Association) DUNEDIN, July 21. The Electricity Department is in the last stages of a struggle for tlie complete control of the electrical industry in the Dominion, the president of the Municipal Electrical Supply Authorities’ Association (Mr E. Whittleston) alleged today.

“The department has plans to cover the whole Dominion with about 10 power boards,” he said in a statement

Dissent between the present power boards and municipalities had been fostered, Mr Whittleston said, by the way these bodies were kept in strait jackets. “The lure to the administrators appeared to be 10 or 20 top positions at well over

£3OOO a year, and over thai the complete monopoly of an industry which already has an income of £38,000,000 i. year, and whose turnover in creases by at least 7 per cent a year cumulatively,” Mr Whittleston said.

The present board, he said, would be powerless to prevent this, since members would represent such diverse regions, and their main strength, contact with the elector, would be gone. Mr Whittleston said the Electricity Department’s proposals were aimed first at the cities.

“The proposals would appear to be to silence the municipalities with an offer of annual compensation—compensation which would primarily come from increased charges to their consumers,” he said. The power boards would be the next target, he said, for, having done their primary job of reticulating the country areas, they were in a first

rate position to be grouped and nationalised.

City electricity consumers would pay more, especially the domestic consumer, if the department succeeded in its bid, said Mr Whittleston. Dunedin, Auckland, Hamilton, New Plymouth, Napier Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch, Timaru, and Invercargill would all pay more if these areas were enlarged under the . scheme to cover the country by power boards.