National MP urges Meridian to be clearer about its support for struggling power customers
Thursday, 11 June 2026
Meridian Energy should provide more information on the circumstances in which it will help customers who are struggling to pay their bills, National Party MP Carlos Cheung says.
Cheung, who sits on Parliament’s Transport and Infrastructure select committee, quizzed Meridian, Mercury and Genesis on their views on energy affordability after they reported a combined operating profit of $1.3 billion in the six months to the end of December.
In April, the Electricity Authority announced it was taking a closer look at an 8% average price rise pushed though by power companies this year, which it said came on top of an 8% increase last year.
Cheung called on Meridian, the country’s largest power firm, to be more explicit about the support it offered after the company’s chief executive, Mike Roan, appeared to make an open-ended commitment to the select committee to assist those in need.
Read more:
Roan indicated the company, which operates an “Energy Wellbeing Programme”, would work with every customer that had challenges.
“If you’ve got families in your electorate that are really struggling, get them to talk to us about the challenges that they’re facing, so that we can make sure that they are supported by us,” he told Cheung.
Chief customer officer Lisa Hannifin later clarified Meridian’s message was that anyone who might be struggling with their bills should get in touch “so that we can see how we may be able to help”.
The support Meridian provided could include budgeting advice and “advice on how to consume power more efficiently to avoid high bills”, she said, but a spokesperson made clear it could go beyond that.
“Our energy specialists assess customers and have a range of options available to them, depending on that customer's individual needs,” the spokesperson said.
“Our approach is always to actively support customers who engage with us about payment difficulties, but no two customers are the same and the solutions will vary from person to person.”
Meridian was unable to say how many customers it was providing assistance to, saying that would take a substantial amount of time and effort to compile.
Budgeting charities spoken to by The Post confirmed help was offered on a case-by-case basis, with one — MoneyTalks helpline operator Fincap — singling out one Meridian customer service staffer as particularly helpful.
The Wellington operations manager of the Citizens Advice Bureau, Juliane Tandy, said a common issue it dealt with was power companies refusing standard connections to customers with poor credit ratings, which forced them onto pre-pay plans from those retailers that offered them.
Anecdotally, the help on offer from power companies tended to centre around payment plans and smoothed monthly payments, based on the bureau’s observations.
The Electricity Authority requires power companies to work with customers on options to keep their power connected and only disconnect them “as a last resort”.
But the support they must provide is limited to offering payment plans, for example to spread out overdue payments, advice, and putting a pause on debt collection if customers are working with a support agency.
Those obligations are reflected in a customer care policy published on Meridian’s website, which separately states that support available under its Energy Wellbeing Programme can include “bill credits”.
Several companies — including all four major gentailers — offer credits of up to $220 a year to customers in hardship, under an arrangement put in place when the former Labour government agreed to phase out the cap on lower-use daily electricity tariffs in 2022.
However, that scheme is limited to households in the North Island that use less than 8000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of power a year and those in the South Island that use less than 9000 kWh.
Cheung said he was concerned there was a difference between what the power companies said and what they did, questioning how genuine their offers of support were.
“They’ve been saying there are a lot of different hardship programmes, but I don’t see those programmes being implemented or noticed by people.”
He said he had looked at Meridian’s website and remained unclear about the exact nature of the support it provided.
“So how can people find that out? I think they should give people a lot more information.”
It was understandable support might be offered on a case-by-case basis, but he wanted to see some real examples, he said.
“I want to see how certain things have been done, like whether they lower the power bill or give a temporary discount. I want to see the real thing in more detail.”
He added that Meridian had nevertheless been “less arrogant” than the other gentailers he had quizzed.