Electricity price rise blame stretches back decades | Paul Starick

Consumers are suffering because of an abject failure of political leadership on electricity stretching back decades, writes Paul Starick.

• $355 a year: Blow as power bills to rise again

Households and businesses are paying a scandalous price for decades of bungling of Australia’s electricity system.

This imbroglio has become so huge and complicated that there is no end in sight to punishing price rises and broken promises.

The latest is Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s 2021 vow to slash household power bills by $275 by 2025 with “cheap, renewable power”.

For more than two decades, politicians have blamed “climate wars” for their abject failure to lead the state and nation and deliver a reliable, affordable electricity supply.

Households and small businesses in South Australia are now facing price rises of $114 (5.1 per cent) and $355 (6.6 per cent) respectively, based on the draft default market offer released on Thursday by the Australian Energy Regulator.

These set the framework for energy retailers’ pricing decisions, even if most consumers are on different plans.

The disaster that is electricity policy stretches back more than three decades, to the move toward a national market. This fuelled the 1999 privatisation of state-owned utility ETSA, on the broken promise of cheaper prices.

An electricity transmission tower toppled during high winds ahead of the statewide blackout in September, 2016. AFP photo: Debbie Prosser.

Then South Australia became the canary in the coal mine for renewable energy, which triggered the closure of Port Augusta’s coal-fired power station.

A statewide blackout in 2016 exposed the alarming fragility of the electricity network. Then came Elon Musk’s big battery and Labor’s hydrogen power plan.

This shelved misadventure, unveiled in 2021, promised to deliver “cheaper, firmed renewable electricity”, enabling SA to attract and grow jobs and businesses.

Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis is, rightly, now blaming insufficient gas exploration and supply for the state’s power woes, along with the ongoing “climate wars”.

Effectively, though, he and other political leaders are echoing John Malkovich’s infamous line in the 1988 movie Dangerous Liaisons and declaring: “It’s beyond my control.”

Meanwhile, households and businesses are struggling to make ends meet as electricity prices keep on rising.

Sometime, someone has to step up and show some real leadership to properly tackle this enormous problem.

Originally published as Electricity price rise blame stretches back decades | Paul Starick