Mike's Minute: Are politicians trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist?

Oh the irony.

In the same week we got all that hot air about supermarkets and co-operative bust-ups, we got the food price index out of the stats department.

And as much as you may like to deny it, argue about it, or ignore it, these are statistics. They are not reckons, or supermarket isle chatter, or lazy street-side vox pops for the TV.

Pee Kay: When Failures became Outages

And who is to blame?

Our wallets took another hit this month as power prices increased by roughly 5%, that, an added painful addition to the 12% increase we experienced in 2025. While most households faced increases between 4% and 12%, we should also spare a thought for Northland households, who are grappling with a 21% price hike while the rest of the country looks for someone to blame!

Naturally, consumers are asking; Why are we being subjected to these relentless price hikes, and who is responsible? Is there a single entity at fault, or is this a systemic failure?

Point of Order: Power without the pain of unbearable prices – how our electricity companies have been performing

The big power companies on which New Zealanders depend for energy supplies in their homes, factories and farms have had a remarkable season. But unlike their counterparts in Australia and the United Kingdom they have navigated it without inflicting the same sort of pain on their consumers in soaring prices.

An earlier post from our authoritative London writer this week on Point of Order charted the UK issues. The lessons are instructive.

Here in NZ, consumers may have complained, too, but by comparison they enjoyed plentiful supplies without the problems when they become too dependent on wind and solar power as a result of the drive to decarbonise.