Time for Woods to apologise?

Radio NZ reports:

The Electricity Authority has confirmed Transpower is responsible for unnecessary power cuts to 34,000 consumers on one of the coldest nights of the year.

The authority’s final report on the 9 August power cuts confirms Transpower’s coordination and communication failures for the unnecessary outages.

At the time, power cuts hit without warning, catching thousands off guard with no time to fill their hot water bottles or find torches.

So the outages were caused by an entity owned 100% by the Government. But who did the Minister try to blame at the time. The Herald reported at the time:

As temperatures plunged across the country and Kiwis reached for their heaters and hot water bottles, tempers flared in Parliament over the power outages that plunged thousands into darkness on Monday night.

Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods turned up the heat on power companies for the outages while defending the Government’s decision to ban offshore oil and gas exploration.

Woods also wanted answers to more difficult questions like whether the electricity market would function properly in the future and whether the big gentailers had turned off generation to maximise their profits.

Woods herself appeared unconvinced by power companies’ excuses for the outages saying the incident “prompted further questions on whether the system is fit for purpose”.

Woods told Parliament that the “market failed” to deliver “security of supply” on Monday night.

So Wood blamed the gentailers, the market and profits for the outage. None of which was true. The outage was caused by the Government owned Transpower.

We see this all the time, Ministers hate the private sector making profits and always try to blame it. Just recently David Clark is trying to blame the massive inflation rate on supermarket profits, rather than on monetary policy!