The media do themselves and us a disservice when they refuse or can't see the reality.  

The first part power pricing report is out, and what it said was one, there is a two-tier market.

Two, 100,000 people spend more than 10 percent of their income on power which means 90 percent don’t. 

Three, the price rise over the last 28 years is about 2 and a half percent a year. And that is either bad or not so bad, depending on your view of the world. 

But overall the report concludes power companies are not making outrageous profits. And by in large when you compare us to the OECD we're relatively affordable.  

And yet, on the news, we have the story of the mother of 11 who has to borrow to pay the bills.  

What is the point of that? What do we learn from that approach? 

Is the media's job these days to take any version of a particular story and go and find the worst example possible? As though that somehow is representative of the story as a whole?  

A story on pay rises, we go find the person who hasn’t had one.  

The pay offer for the teachers or the nurses, and we go find a person who's fed up and quit.  

What's the point other than to show a person aggrieved, troubled, angry, or struggling? Given that’s reality and we already know that. 

What does the media achieve pedalling this? Other than to further enhance their crumbling reputation for reportage.  

People spending 10 percent or more of their income on power doesn’t mean power prices are too high. It can quite easily mean they're not earning enough, or they're using too much power.  

We can't price power, the same way we can't price anything, based on an individual's income.  

Now, this is not to defend power companies, but it is to try and bring a level of balance to what I strongly suspect is the mass disappointment among many that the power pricing report didn’t say what they wanted it to say.  

And that is we're all being rorted, the power industry is a scam with fat cats all over the place, and the system is broke.  

Could we do better? Probably. 

But here's what I know about power reform, we are largely hydro. Hydro is environmentally acceptable but open to the vagaries of the weather.

But when it comes to new capacity, no one wants a new damn. No one wants a wind farm, no one wants nuclear, no one wants coal.  

No one wants anything, but they're happy to moan about the price. 

And the report in one way has an answer. Do you want a better deal on power? Yes you do. Do we have better deals available? Yes we do.  

The deals are out there, but do we access them? No we don’t.  

Why not? Because we are too lazy, or too busy moaning.  

What a disappointment when the reality doesn’t match our mindset.