Windfall

Last Saturday, I got the surprise of my life when I opened my mailbox and saw a cheque in my name worth $320. It was from the Auckland Electricity Community Trust. Sort of a dividend from paying the electric bills. The brochure on the AECT that's enclosed in the envelope with the cheque says the dividend is our "annual return on the Trust's assets which are held in trust for the benefit of the people living within the old Auckland Electric Power Board area." I've been living in this place for only four months and been paying an average of $25 monthly for my electricity comsumption and I received $320 or more than three times what I have paid in the last four months. When I told my friends about it, they were kind of envious because they did not receive any dividends. This is because they live in a university-owned accommodation where electricity is included in their monthly rent, unlike me who's renting a private flat and paying a separate fee for electricity consumption on top of my monthly rent. Their dividends, I suppose, are being paid to the university. I am really amased by the system here. Giving dividends to consumers is not only rewarding them for the service that they have purchased but also giving back to them their money. Think about that! There's nothing like this in my home country. There, the consumers are often at the mercy of the producers and service providers. When the prices of raw materials increase, they just pass on the burden to the consumers. In Japan where I lived for two years, I've also not experienced receiving "rewards" like this. Little by little, I am beginning to understand how really it's like to live in a welfare state. I remember my Japanese supervisor. He would always marvel about NZ being a welfare state--from "cradle to grave".