Competition heating up in Queensland power market

COMPETITION is certainly heating up in the local electricity market, with power retailers pulling out all stops to keep their existing customers.

Competition is heating up in the local electricity market.

POWER PLAY

COMPETITION is certainly heating up in the local electricity retail market.

Your diarist signed up with market newcomer Alinta on the promise of a big cut in his power bill only to have his current supplier Red Energy ring him up with an even better offer and beg him to come back.

Red Energy appears to have a very efficient system of reeling back customers who may want to stray. When your diarist relented and said he would be signing up with them rather than jumping ship they patched him straight through to Alinta’s cancellation hotline.

Alinta executive director for retail markets Jim Galvin told your diarist last year that the company could sign up 250,000 customers in southeast Queensland over the next two years. As of February, it had 100,000 on its books.

Illustration of Jim Galvin by Brett Lethbridge.

Of course, the proof is in the pudding with all the claims about lower bills. Your diarist will be closely checking his next bill to see if the promises made by Red translate into lower prices.

NO BULL

THE late Ross Tisch was known as Brisbane’s paper cup king, building a small operation into a multimillion-dollar business supplying cups to Hungry Jack’s, Donut King and KFC.

Tisch, who retired to the Gold Coast after a successful business career, also had a reputation as a no-nonsense sort of guy. Your diarist was lucky enough to get a behind-the-scenes tour of Tisch’s old factory at Kingston, now part of Japanese paper manufacturer Oji Fibre Solutions, where old hands regaled him with yarns about the company founder. One of their favourite stories was his way of dealing with bills and invoices he considered exorbitant. He had a special stamp made up with the word ‘‘BULLSHIT’’ that would be stamped on the invoice and duly posted back to the offending company.

OVER COOKED

YOUR diarist spotted a stunning example of bad marketing during a recent trip to his old stamping ground of Hong Kong.

Someone at the Hong Kong-based clothing chain Giordano, which also has a couple of outlets around Brisbane, thought it would be a cracking idea to dress up a local Chinese family in a new line of T-shirts with words emblazoned on the front describing their various roles. The man wore “Work” on his shirt while the two children were “Cry” and “Play.” Unfortunately, the lady of the house had “Cook” emblazoned on the front of her shirt. Unsurprisingly, this set off a social media storm of complaints, accusing the company of being sexist and it duly issued an apology. As well as being politically incorrect, the campaign was also factually incorrect. Anyone who has spent any time in Hong Kong will know that most middle-class Chinese women would not be seen dead cooking. That is left to the army of hard working maids from the Philippines and Indonesia.

GINGER UP

WE HEAR the folks at Bundaberg Brewed Drinks are gearing up for a big harvest of ginger, the key ingredient in their popular ginger beer. About 800 tonnes of the stuff is expected to go through the Bundy factory in the next three months, a 10 per cent increase over last year. The company also has teamed up with CQUniversity’s Institute for Future Farming Systems to conduct a study into ginger-growing techniques. It’s been a big year for the company headed by chief executive John McLean who has struck a deal with giant PepsiCo to distribute its products to more than 400,000 bars, restaurants and stores in the US.

FINAL CUT

AN INTRIGUING billboard was spotted on the way up to the Sunshine Coast, advertising the services of a local medico who goes by the name of Dr Snip. The doctor provides “walk in and walk out” vasectomies and judging by the size of the billboard his services are in hot demand. Ouch!