Government owned mining company Solid Energy lost $182 million last year. It is already received nearly $200 million in corporate welfare in bailouts from the New Zealand taxpayer. It’s time to call a halt.
The Christchurch-based coalminer is negotiating with banks in a bid to reduce its $320 million debt. In 2013, its annual revenue dropped by a third to $631 million.
Solid Energy invested heavily on a strategy that energy prices were going to go up and up. That investment strategy was against the market sentiment of that time, much less afterwards and the collapse of oil prices.
While Prime Minister John Key said on March 2 that it was not the Government’s preferred option to put more taxpayer cash into Solid Energy, Minister of Finance Bill English flatly ruled out cash, loans or guarantees. I hope Bill English wins that political struggle at the Cabinet table for the…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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