Wednesday, March 21, 2012 (5:13am)
Another day, another carbon dioxide tax shock for Australians.
According to a frightening report in The Daily Telegraph, Australians are paying one of the highest prices in the world for electricity and that price is set to soar when the new tax kicks in from July 1 and other agreed price increases take effect.
The newspaper’s consumer watchdog, John Rolfe says Australians pay 130 per cent more for electricity than Canadians, and that will premium will rise to 250 per cent in coming months.
Research prepared by the Energy Users Association of Australia – which represents 100 big power users including BHP, RailCorp, Coles, the Commonwealth Bank and Brisbane City Council - claims household charges are already 70 per cent higher than the American average, a figure that will grow to 160 per cent in two years. Japanese, British, French, Irish and New Zealanders all pay less than we do.
It explodes the myth that Australian electricity is relatively cheap.
Rolfe also found that recent claims by Energy Minister Martin Ferguson that said Australians pay less than the OECD average, relying on a document called Energy In Australia 2012, which his department’s Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) published three weeks ago – uses outdated figures.
The electricity prices it cites are from 2009-10.
In 2010-11 alone the national price rose by 16 per cent; the NSW jump was 23 per cent.
The numbers used to compile the document Mr Ferguson relied on put the NSW average at 18.55c/kWh – but households are actually paying regulated rates as high as 28c/kWh.
The average NSW household’s annual cost for electricity would fall from $1700 to less than $700 if our prices were the same as in Canada.
When the carbon dioxide tax is introduced from July, along with furtther network price increases and renewable energy subsidies, our prices will be challenge Denmark and Germany as the most expensive in the world, according to the EUAA.
Carbon Market Economics, which examined global prices, found Australian power prices had risen about 40 per cent since 2007 and would rise by another 30 per cent over the next two years.
It found that, even using 2007 currency exchange rates, Australian households still paid more than those in Japan, US, Canada and the average of the EU. Carbon Market Economics comparison of prices in 92 jurisdictions - including more than 35 countries, American states and all Australian states and territories - found NSW ranked fourth behind Denmark, Germany and South Australia. Victoria was fifth and Western Australia was sixth. The ACT was 21st.
This smells like another Gillard-Labor-Green-Independent cover-up.
No-one will be surprised. This excuse for a government relies on the Greens and the Greens policies insist on the use of renewable energy.
Australians are subsidising this lunacy. Green renewable energy will kill business and industry and make power unaffordable for the public.
Globally, less than one per cent of energy is produced from wind or solar because it is prohibitively expensive but the Greens don’t understand economics and the Gillard government will not stand up to the Greens.
This madness must be stopped while some industry still exists in Australia.
We have access to the cheapest coal resources in the world yet we are cutting our own economic throat by pricing our power at the highest level.
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