Wellington, Dec 10 NZPA - Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee's proposed re-jig of the electricity sector may actually raise electricity prices and reduce the security of power supply, says a retailer in the sector.

Last week Gerry Brownlee released the long awaited ministerial review of the electricity sector. Once again it gave us the same old, same old....more market-driven competition and even less state involvement in electricity policy.

This week's Commerce Commission report into power company price fixing arrangements simply verified something that we knew all about as consumers but which the power companies have been denying to us all along - that they have been fleecing us to the tune of $4.3 billion over the last seven years (a

This week the National Government's favourite Bovver Boy, Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee launched a ministerial inquiry into this country's now dysfunctional market-driven electricity sector.