‘Lies, damn lies and statistics’: Accusations fly in energy trust election stoush

Friday, 19 June 2026

WEL Energy Trust’s election is causing sparks to fly between candidates.

Two lead horses vying for a WEL Energy Trust election win are at loggerheads over statistical claims in electioneering bumpf.

Michael West and the Your Discounts Team have made an array of claims against Alan Chew and the MORE Team, accusing them of “blatant lies” and manipulating statistics to sway voters.

The claims have been dubbed “an insult to voters” and “frivolous” by MORE team member and Houston Technology Group founder Alan Chew.

The Trust manages over $1.1 billion dollars in community assets, with the network connecting over 102,000 businesses and residential houses to energy suppliers. Voting turnout for the election rarely exceeds 12%, according to Chew.

Michael West’s voting profile.

Michael West is on the Your Discounts Team.

West disputed the wording of Chew’s profile statement, saying his reference to being “re-elected in 2023”, alongside highlighted figures showing increases of 61%, 41% and 35.8% in grants, electricity discounts and the discount lift for 2026/27 respectively, gave the misleading impression that the gains were achieved solely during his team's three-year term.

He claimed the true statistics from FY23 and FY26 showed an increase of 85% in community grants and electricity discounts of only 2.8%.

'In addition, while an increase in electricity discounts has been approved for the 2026/27 financial year, the approved increase is 29%, not the 35.8% claimed in the candidate profiles.'

He further claimed false information when the MORE Team claimed they have increased discounts by $13 million 'in the last three years'.

'… discounts increased from $14.2M in the financial year 2024 to $18.7M in the financial year 2027. Even if FY24 is used as a base line and the annual increases are aggregated, $0.1M FY25, $0.3M FY26 and $4.5M FY27, the total increase is only $4.9M.'

Founder and CEO of Houston Technology Group Alan Chew has backed his statistics to be correct.

'I'm trying to point out there's misinformation there and it's making the candidates look to have achieved things they haven't,“ he added.

Defending his statistics, Chew said his team uses the sum of the triennium term his team served, compared to the previous term, governed by the Your Discounts Team.

Chew’s official voting profile.

Chew added that this calculation therefore avoided dis-honestly favouring his team or the Your Discounts team.

“Selecting a single year from within a triennium produces a result that varies significantly depending on which year is chosen,” he said.

“The figures were out by an immaterial 0.06% overall, and the direction of travel is unchanged. More than that, the figures confirmed that the MORE team achieved even better than we had put onto the profiles, for example, grants went up by 73% instead of 61%.”

Addressing West’s claims that the specific wording regarding three years should refer to the three past chronological years instead of terms, Chew said “only one in a thousand people” would infer it in the way West did.

He said the same terminology is utilised in central Government, inferring it is a common interpretation.

Chew admitted there were slight calculation errors in his statistics, saying the corrected figures should read “grants up 73.9%, discounts up 37.2%, total distributions up 49.8%”.

Voting for the election closes on the 26th of June at midday.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.