John MacDonald: The Nanny State - coming to a bathroom near you

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

I know it was pretty cold this morning, but, despite all that, I hope you didn’t spend too long in the shower. Otherwise, you would’ve had Megan Woods knocking on the door telling you it was time to get out.

So what we had yesterday was the Government launching a new campaign to give us tips on how to save money and deal with the cost of living crisis.

And what Energy Minister Megan Woods says we should be doing is taking shorter showers, washing our clothes in cold water instead of hot, switching-off appliances at the wall if we’re not using them, and shopping around to see if we can get a better deal with a different power supplier.

This all happened just before the Reserve Bank Governor announced he was upping the official cash rate to 5.5 percent. Which means when a whole lot of people come off their fixed mortgages throughout the rest of the year, things are really going to bite.

The fact the Government came out with this “we-know-best” advice was bad enough. The fact they did it just as we were finding out that its Budget last week was part of the reason why interest rates are going up, made it seem even stranger.

And the bad news for me - is that I’m not going to benefit in any way from Megan’s advice on my showering practises. Which is, that we should be limiting our time in the shower to five minutes because it will save money on the power bills.

I can’t actually remember the last time I had a five-minute shower. Ask anyone in my family, and they’ll tell you how I like to bang on all the time about my ability to be in and out of the shower in just 30 seconds!

It almost takes longer for the water to warm up than it does for me to have the shower. So the five-minute shower advice from Megan is not going to make any difference for me.

Then there’s the recommendation that we do more cold washes when we do the laundry. Well who doesn’t know that already?

Maybe I’m overestimating the number of people who actually have a clue about all this stuff. Perhaps there are going to be people all over the country who are so much more clued up about this stuff today because of what Megan Woods came out with yesterday. But I doubt it.

In fact, this list of things the Government came out with yesterday looks more like something you’d tell your teenagers - which is often a losing battle when they’re at home, but when they start flatting and paying for power and stuff themselves they seem to be more interested in this sort of thing.

But is this really the best the Government can come up with?

More specifically, is this the best the Minister of Energy can come up with? I don’t think it is. I think it’s patronising, to say the very least.

Especially, when you consider how much people are being rorted by the power sector. Shorter showers and turning off appliances at the wall - they’re not going to make one bit of difference when you consider all the energy costs you and I have no control over.

Just this week, I was talking to someone who said their most-recent power bill was $58. That’s relatively low I know - but this person lives on their own so they’re a low user.

Shorter showers and all the other “we-know-best” ideas the Government came out with yesterday will mean diddly-squat to this person. Because of that $58, only $6 is for the actual electricity. The other $52 is for lines charges.

Which is why, instead of lecturing us, the Government should be pointing the finger at these power companies that are just ripping us off. In fact, it shouldn’t just be pointing the finger at the power companies - it should be taking the stick to them.

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