Letter from Elsewhere

© Anne Else; 19 April 2000

 The Price of Powerlessness

On 6 March, the Dominion reported that a Gisborne man had committed suicide after Contact Energy cut off his power after he had not paid his bills for four months. He was receiving an over-55 benefit. This is what you get if you are over 55 and can't find a job. It is paid at the same level as the unemployment benefit: $147 a week.

The man was obviously unable to cover his living costs. "His fridge had been repossessed the previous month with $200 owing, his car insurance had run out, as had the warrant of fitness. Three weeks before his death he received a letter from Contact saying that if he did not pay the $206.25 owing, his power would be cut off. The power was cut off the day before the man's body was found in his home."

The coroner, Alan Hall, found that the man's death was self-inflicted.

Four weeks later, on 5 April, the Dominion ran another item from Gisborne, headed "Baby dies after power cut off". The same coroner found that Anthony Reihana Hoani, aged nine months, died of asphyxiation when the house caught fire.

His mother was a domestic purposes beneficiary. Three days before the fire, Contact had cut off her power because the bill of $297 had not been paid. The family had been cooking meals at a neighbour's house and using candles for lighting. The mother said she ensured all the candles were out before she went to bed. But candles appeared to have been involved in the fire, which started in the kitchen.

WINZ was not called to account for how it had failed to ensure that these "customers" had enough to live on. The government was not urged to institute an immediate review of income support policies. The coroner merely suggested that Contact Energy review its disconnection procedures, and inform landlords whenever they are about to disconnect the power from a tenant - presumably so that they can ensure their property is protected from the powerless.

Contact Energy cannot be blamed for its behaviour. It is supposed to run like any other commercial business, and it does. If people use what it sells and don't pay, it can't take back the power. But it can, and does, cut off the supply. What happens next is not Contact's responsibility.

Yet what it sells is now as essential as water or air. The immediate problem is glaringly obvious:

No one is charged with ensuring that enough money is coming into every household, every week, to cover rent, power and adequate food, let alone clothing, phone, transport, medical costs, school costs, insurance, household furnishings, and equipment such as a fridge and a washing machine.

There is not even a list of real-life basic living costs for various household sizes and ages. Instead there is a complex patchwork of benefits and grants and allowances and repayable loans, all governed by different rules. Most beneficiaries haven't got a hope of figuring out what their legal entitlements are - and WINZ staff know that. When people try to get more money out of WINZ, they often end up getting directed to the local foodbank instead. Either they are simply not entitled to enough money to live on; or else they are entitled to more, but they don't get it unless an advocate takes on WINZ on their behalf.

But what worries community organisations most are the people who never make it to the foodbank. When WINZ turns them down, they just go away. They may not even try to contact WINZ at all. Instead they cook at the neighbour's, they light candles - and their baby dies. Or they do.

These deaths are not the price of power - they are the price of powerlessness. Our shiny new government must be judged by one overriding test: how fast and how effectively it can bring that price down.
 

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