Utilities

As far as the elderly are concerned, they use less electricity, gas, water and telephones than the general population. This party proposes that standing charges should be eliminated for all pensioners. The standing charge is a throw back from the days when it was viewed as an allocation of funds for fixed items of plant. It now appears as a device to solicit funds from low users.

We have now experienced a long term feel for the utility services within the private sector.

On balance, and many of us can remember long ago, and taking into consideration the expansion of the population and increase usage we feel that all the utilities should be removed from the private sector. Resources are now too valuable for them to be operated on a profit basis.

Profits appear to be diverted to shareholders than ploughed back into the service to guarantee supplies. Examples of this are that reservoirs have been sold off to provide building land. Clearly this is counter productive when we experience long periods of dry weather. Load centres of use are disproportionately weighted against areas of dense populations. A comprehensive strategy of providing water, gas, electricity, and oil should be adopted so that loss of supplies are mitigated nationwide. This will mean an increase in interconnectors between all areas, the number of reservoirs, dams for the use of electricity, off shore exploration of natural gas and oil. We need a strategy of providing supplies that do not damage the environment. This should be coupled with an expansion in the plantations of forests.