Long before the campaign launch, NZ First's Shane Jones — as a minister — accused the big power companies of profiteering, saying the gentailers no longer operated to enhance competitiveness and that the regulator had been "a chocolate teapot" in curbing excess behaviour. RNZ reported he was canvassing regulatory interventions, signalling NZ First's growing appetite to reshape the sector.

Independent economists are divided on the central claim. Griffith University's Richard Meade argued that legal unbundling and non-discrimination rules can backfire — reducing supply volumes and pushing retail prices up — and that gentailers may simply raise the prices charged to their own retail arms. New Zealand Initiative chief executive Oliver Hartwich made a similar case, arguing vertical integration cushions households from wholesale spikes (standalone retailers would buy costly hedges and pass them on), that the Telecom/Chorus precedent doesn't apply because generation is not a natural monopoly, and that decades of EU "unbundling" had not cut consumer prices. Supporters such as VUW's Geoff Bertram counter that the market is structurally broken, with legacy hydro earning excess rents while high-cost Huntly sets the price. With retail prices up about 12.5% in the year to March 2026 and lines charges driving much of the rise, whether structural separation would meaningfully cut bills remains genuinely contested.

In his State of the Nation speech in Tauranga, themed "Power to the People", Winston Peters announced that NZ First would campaign to structurally separate the big four gentailers into distinct generation and retail companies so they could "no longer control both the power and the price". He claimed the four firms control almost 90% of generation and "sell it back to themselves". The package also promised fixed-price contracts for new generation, priority grid access for renewables and mandatory solar buy-back.

The day after the speech, Peters acknowledged the gentailers would likely resist — "no doubt they are having meetings now" — but said they "won't, at the end of the day, after the votes are counted, be in the room". He framed NZ First as "trapped in a coalition" that had stopped it acting sooner. Jones separately said splitting the gentailers would be NZ First's headline demand in any post-election negotiation, setting up tension with coalition partners National and ACT.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon rejected a break-up, saying it would "drive a lot of uncertainty in the energy sector when we need a lot of certainty", and National favours capital raises to build new plants over structural reform. ACT's David Seymour cast the problem as one of competition and supply, not ownership structure. Rather than a split, the Electricity Authority is advancing "level playing field" non-discrimination rules — requiring gentailers to offer independent retailers the same wholesale hedge terms as their own retail arms — with changes intended to take effect from early 2026. Interest.co.nz reported NZ First, the Greens and Labour all want change but disagree on how far to go.

Commentator Bryce Edwards described an "establishment" backlash against the gentailers forming around NZ First's pitch. Auckland Business Chamber chief executive and former National leader Simon Bridges called the policy "right" and said his chamber had backed a split for a year; Edwards cited Chamber polling of 49% public support versus 20% opposed. Other named backers included Octopus Energy NZ's Margaret Cooney, who argued "waiting for incumbents to voluntarily disrupt their own profitable status quo is not a strategy". The Greens (via Scott Willis' member's bill) and Labour signalled openness to structural change, though with different mechanisms.

The reaction online is polarised: many users frustrated with rising power bills cheer the idea of breaking up the gentailers and reining in dividends, while others — including some in the energy and investment sectors — warn a split could raise prices or scare off generation investment, and note the Crown's awkward role as majority owner.

See the conversation:

• X
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Instagram
• Reddit

Aggregated — individual posts are not cited.