National's Nicola Willis says breaking up New Zealand’s major power gentailers would send a signal internationally that the country's energy is 'up for grabs'

Finance Minister Nicola Willis says splitting up New Zealand's largest energy suppliers would risk creating “massive instability” and send an international signal that the country’s energy system is “up for grabs.”

The Finance Minister made these remarks in a virtual appearance at the Responsible Investment Association Australasia Conference in Auckland on Tuesday morning.

Willis gave a keynote address and also joined a panel about NZ investors’ role in powering electrification with Mercury NZ chief executive Stew Hamilton and independent director Sina Cotter Tait. Harbour Asset Management co-CEO and chief investment officer Andrew Bascand led the panel discussion.

During the panel discussion, Willis was asked about splitting up the country’s biggest power companies. She said that while National didn’t disagree that there were problems with the country’s electricity system, the diagnosis of these issues pointed away from breaking up the largest power generators and retailers, also known as gentailers.

“When we diagnose what the causes of those problems are, we can't draw a straight line between those issues and the current structure of the system in which retailers combine retail and wholesale operations. In fact, a pretty clear-eyed diagnosis says the regulatory settings in terms of consenting have been far too cumbersome,” she said.

“Threatening a major structural separation of the existing gentailers risks massive instability and sending a signal to the world that the settings in our energy system are totally up for grabs and that it's not a stable place in which to invest.”

National is, however, campaigning ahead of November's election on breaking up Foodstuffs to try and make the supermarket duopoly more competitive.

NZ's largest power generator retailers are Mercury Energy, Meridian Energy, Genesis Energy and Contact Energy, also known as the ‘big four’. Currently, the Government owns a 51% majority shareholding in Meridian, Genesis and Mercury. Contact is one of the country's largest share market listed companies.

Mercury, Meridian and Genesis delivered a total of $1.175 billion in dividends during the June 2026 year, comprising interim and final dividends, generating almost $600 million in dividend entitlements for the Crown.

The gentailers annual reports for the June 2026 year show the Government’s dividend entitlements are around $196.2 million from Mercury NZ, $303.9 million from Meridian and $99.3 million from Genesis for the 12 months to June 30.

At the conference, Willis said the Government had identified that NZ needed to have “strong regulation” in the form of the Electricity Authority with the mandate to enforce competitive settings.

“So our view is, yep, there have been issues, we can address those at their root and must do so, but I'd be very wary of saying that a structural separation in this sector would deliver overall benefits either to New Zealanders, the environment, or electricity generation.”

Electricity prices, as measured by Statistics NZ's Consumers price index (CPI), were up 4.4% on a quarterly basis and 12.0% annually in the June quarter.

NZ First leader Winston Peters announced in March that NZ First would be campaigning to split the big power gentailer companies up into separate generators and retailers. He said NZ's current system was designed to make maximum profits for power companies, while households and businesses paid the price.

The Green Party also thinks the gentailer model needs to change, with a Member’s Bill from Green MP Scott Willis sitting in the biscuit tin that aims to separate the generators and retailers, while Labour leader Chris Hipkins said earlier this year that he was leaving the door open to fundamental changes to NZ’s electricity market.