3 November 2011

Peter Cleave: Address to constituents in Taumarunui 20.10.11

Peter Cleave and Mana – two ticks from Rangitikei for supporting rural communities rorted by Lines Company with their (not so)smart meters

Submission:

I met Peter Cleave recently, and for my money he and MANA deserve two ticks on election day. This man is short on ego and rhetoric, and long on listening and taking on board the plight of the rural poor in Rangitikei

He is so right about the demise of small rural communities - communities like Taihape in the Rangitikei Electorate, which in an ideal world he hopefully will be representing soon. While our hospital, shops, and timber mills close, throwing hundreds onto the unemployment scrap heap, to become more fodder for the beneficiary bashers, our erstwhile National MP studiously ignored the plight of this community - far to busy dreaming up draconian legislation such as the reduced ability to be represented under legal aid, which on top of the recession would further disadvantage the working poor and beneficiaries.

In standing for MANA Peter Cleave joins heroes of the poor such as Sue Bradford, in trying to turn around the brave new world mantra of asset sales and user pays - so beloved by John Key's government and, by association, his stooges in the Maori Party.

A brave new world that on one hand preaches the evils of global warming, and taxes us for our use of that life giving element, carbon, while on the other hand allows monopoly powercos to rort the public with (not-so)smart meters. Oh well, the more electricity used by these powered appliances - they aren't just meters in the old sense - and their (not-so)smart adjuncts - smart appliances and smart plugs, the greater the excuse for Labour, National, and the environmentally deluded Greens to push for yet more inefficient industrial wind developments to litter our iconic rural landscapes with their pin-wheel junkyards.

What we in rural communities need is the facility to generate our own electricity, and sell it back to the powercos, as happens in at least 40 countries. The banks in these countries are only too happy to offer cheap loans for 100% of the infrastructure costs to domestic power generaters, because they know their investment is 100% safe. The cost to the home power generater is easily covered by what they sell their excess power for. Instead many in the Rangitikei are lumbered with one powerco forcibly requiring them to spend more on their power - not less! What madness is this, and who is driving it? You guessed it - BIG BUSINESS, aided and abetted by BIG GOVERNMENT which just loves those fat dividends the state owned powercos deliver.

What can we do? In the meantime, don't pay the robber barons any more than you have to. Shun smart appliances, and turn everything off at the wall when not in use. A microwave oven constantly switched on at the wall, over a year can use as much power from the little lights that stay on, as it does in actually cooking food. And lobby candidates and your elected representatives to support a domestic electricity buy back tariff. That's two small steps...

Go Peter Cleave! Go MANA. Kia kaha

ENDS

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