Who speaks for consumers now that the Consumer Advocacy Council is gone?
In 2019, the Electricity Price Review (EPR) concluded something basic but important:
small electricity consumers didn’t have a strong, independent voice in the system.
To fix that, the Government set up the Consumer Advocacy Council (CAC) in 2020 as a ministerial advisory committee. Its job was simple and sharp:
- provide evidence-based advocacy for households and small businesses
- commission independent research
- make submissions on complex market and regulatory changes, on behalf of those who don’t have in-house lawyers and economists. MBIE+1
MBIE’s own briefing on the CAC is very clear: disestablishing it would create a gap in evidence-based advocacy for small consumers, especially with big electricity reforms ahead. MBIE
Yet, in Budget 2024, Cabinet decided to disestablish the CAC, saving around $1.6m per year from 2025/26 onwards. The Treasury New Zealand+1
At the same time, the Government approved a $11.7m funding uplift for the Electricity Authority (EA) in 2024/25, taking its total levy-funded budget to $112.5m, followed by a further $7.8m increase in 2025/26. Electricity Authority+1
Those EA funds are recovered through levies on the industry, which can ultimately show up in household power bills. Wikipedia
So we have three facts:
- The EPR said consumers needed a stronger voice.
- CAC was created to be that voice, and MBIE warned that killing it would leave a gap. MBIE+1
- CAC has now been shut down to “save money”, while EA’s budget has gone up, not down.
That combination should concern anyone who cares about a fair, trusted transition to renewable energy.
What was CAC actually doing?
CAC wasn’t just writing polite letters.
- It commissioned independent research on affordability, retail competition and disclosure rules. MBIE+2Electricity Authority+2
- It ran annual sentiment surveys, which showed rising anxiety about power bills and resilience among households and small businesses. RNZ+2RNZ+2
- It pushed for clearer power bills and “best-plan notices” so consumers could see if they were on the cheapest plan – something already standard in parts of Australia. RNZ+1
As CAC’s work ramped up, some of its questions became sharp:
- A CAC-commissioned NZIER report found that the EA’s disclosure regime (designed to show whether retailers were earning excess profits) was not working as intended. BusinessDesk+1
- Outgoing chair Deborah Hart told BusinessDesk there were “clear signs the electricity market is not working as well as it should be”, just as the council’s funding was being axed. BusinessDesk
In other words:
CAC had started to do the job it was set up to do – and it was making some people uncomfortable.
At the same time, the regulator’s budget is rising
None of this proves bad intent. The EA is facing a more complex world – more renewables, more decentralised resources, more cyber and system-operator costs – and it will need capability.
But the optics are unavoidable:
- The independent critic (CAC) is defunded to save about $1.6m/year, even though officials warn this will leave a consumer-advocacy gap. MBIE+2The Treasury New Zealand+2
- The regulator (EA) gets a levy-funded uplift of $11.7m in 2024/25, and a further $7.8m in 2025/26, with funding framed as necessary to deliver a “consumer-focused transition”. Electricity Authority+2Electricity Authority+2
For ordinary households, this looks less like “savings” and more like a rebalancing of power away from independent consumer voice and toward the regulator and industry.
When that regulator is also responsible for designing the rules that will govern distributed energy, EVs, flexible demand, and local networks, trust becomes a system-level issue, not a side question.
Why this matters for the renewable energy transition
The next phase of New Zealand’s energy transition depends on millions of small decisions by households and small businesses:
- installing solar and batteries
- enabling EV smart charging and, eventually, vehicle-to-grid
- participating in demand-response and flexibility markets
- trusting aggregators or retailers to control their devices at certain times.
We already see from Australia that aggregators can become rent-takers, taking control of prosumers’ assets and locking in value on their side of the deal. If consumers feel they have no strong, independent advocate – and no regulator they fully trust – they are less likely to hand over control of their EV or battery to anyone.
Closing CAC while boosting EA funding sends an unfortunate signal:
“We can afford more money for the system that governs you,
but not for the one entity that stood purely in your corner.”
That’s the opposite of what we need if we want willing participation in flexibility, peer-to-peer trading and local energy markets.
Has anyone properly investigated this?
Pieces of the story are on the record:
- BusinessDesk has reported on CAC’s exit, the NZIER disclosure report, and wider concerns that the electricity market isn’t delivering for consumers. BusinessDesk+4BusinessDesk+4BusinessDesk+4
- RNZ has covered CAC’s sentiment surveys and rising hardship. RNZ+2RNZ+2
- Consumer NZ has ongoing campaigns highlighting a “broken” electricity market and the need for clearer bills and stronger consumer protections. Consumer NZ+2Consumer NZ+2
- MBIE documents and Budget papers openly set out both the disestablishment decision and the EA funding uplift. Sapere+5MBIE+5The Treasury New Zealand+5
What appears to be missing is:
- A joined-up investigation that asks:
- Why was CAC really disestablished?
- What concerns, if any, did EA or industry participants raise about CAC’s work?
- How were consumers’ interests weighed against the convenience of having fewer critics?
- How does this square with the OECD’s observation that a strong consumer voice in regulated sectors improves policy and regulatory performance? OECD
Until those questions are aired and answered, we are asking households to trust a system where:
- the only dedicated consumer advocate has been removed, and
- the regulator’s budget and influence are expanding, funded by levies that end up on power bills.
That is not a recipe for deep, durable public trust in the rules that will govern our transition to renewable energy.
Where to from here?
If we want an efficient, fair transition, we need:
- Independent consumer voice restored or replaced with something at least as strong as the CAC was intended to be.
- Transparent explanations from Ministers, MBIE and the EA about the rationale for disestablishing CAC, especially in light of EA’s funding uplifts.
- Investigative journalism and parliamentary scrutiny that join the dots between consumer hardship, market design, governance, and where public money is really flowing.
The Consumer Advocacy Council existed because an independent review found consumers had no real voice in the electricity system. Revoking that decision wasn’t about savings; the numbers don’t support that. It was political, and consumers — not industry — are the ones who lose.
This isn’t about conspiracy. It’s about recognising that:
When you remove the independent thorn in the system and simultaneously feed the system more resources, you have to expect questions.
Those questions need honest answers if we want New Zealanders to plug their EVs, batteries and flexibility into a system they can trust.