ELLIOT IKILEI: Is this a power company or a cultural ministry?

Have you seen this?

Meridian’s job advertisement is seriously revealing, and not for the reasons the company probably intended.

New Zealanders want cheaper power bills. Instead, we’re getting corporate spirituality?

The advertisement reads less like a technology recruitment ad and more like a cultural values manifesto. Applicants are told to “show tū maia”, practice “rangatiratanga”, uphold “kaitiakitanga”, embrace “whānau”, and protect “mauri”. Routine corporate functions are wrapped in spiritualised language and managerial self-expression.

This isn’t about a few scattered Māori words. Most New Zealanders wouldn’t care about that. The issue is something much bigger: a majority state-owned electricity company increasingly presenting itself less like a utility provider and more like a professional-managerial identity project.

At some point, ordinary people are entitled to ask a simple question:

Why is an electricity company behaving like a cultural ministry?

This is exactly why Hobson’s Pledge exists. To expose this corporate drift.

These changes rarely happen through public mandate. They spread through cultural pressure, without ordinary New Zealanders ever being asked.

This disconnect matters because Meridian is not a boutique consultancy or activist NGO. It is a major electricity provider, 51% owned by taxpayers, selling an essential service during a cost-of-living crisis.

Right now, households across New Zealand are struggling with increasing power bills, which will only rise further as we enter winter. Meanwhile, Meridian appears more interested in embedding ideological and cultural branding into even a mid-level IT platform management role.

The ad is also strikingly self-indulgent. The job’s responsibilities could be explained clearly in a few practical paragraphs. Instead, enormous space is devoted to internal values, language, emotional framing, and identity signalling.

For many New Zealanders, this is simply not how they speak or think about their power company. It is the language of a very specific urban managerial culture concentrated in HR departments, government agencies, consultancies, and communications teams.

And there is another consequence companies rarely acknowledge: this kind of language quietly narrows who feels comfortable applying.

Many highly capable technical people will read this and conclude:

“This workplace is culturally performative.”

“I’ll need to learn ideological jargon to fit in."

“Competence matters less than values signalling.”

That is not healthy for critical national infrastructure.

Meridian sells electricity, not enlightenment.

Ordinary New Zealanders should not have to sit quietly while institutions and the corporate world become increasingly disconnected from the people they serve.

The people are not asking for more “rangatiratanga” in recruitment ads. But they are wondering why their electricity costs so much.

Elliot Ikilei is a Hobson's Pledge trustee. You can support their work here.