Craig Kelly warns of class action if AGL doesn’t sell Liddell

Liberal MP Craig Kelly has challenged competition tsar Rod Sims to take action against AGL.

Craig Kelly at Parliament House in Canberra.

Liberal MP Craig Kelly has challenged competition chief Rod Sims to act against AGL for planning to close the Liddell coal-fired power station in NSW, arguing it could expose the company to “one of the largest class-action claims our nation has seen”.

Mr Kelly, the chairman of the ­Coalition’s backbench committee on energy and the environment, said there was scope to take ­action against AGL under revamped misuse of market power provisions at section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act.

In a letter to the chairman of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, Mr Kelly said he disagreed with Mr Sims’ argument that competition laws could not force a company to sell an asset.

Mr Kelly, one of the leading members of the Monash Forum pushing for the government to build a new coal-fired power ­station, said there was a precedent to take legal action.

He cited a case in the late 1980s in which Queensland Wire — a barbed wire producer — had successfully constructed a case of misuse of market power against BHP after the mining giant refused to sell its “Y-bar”, a product used to make picket fences.

Mr Kelly warned Mr Sims there was a provision under section 82 of the act allowing consumers to form a class action if the closure of the coal-fired power station resulted in an increase in electricity prices.

“AGL are playing a game of Russian roulette with the competition laws,” Mr Kelly told The Australian. “It’s not the ACCC that’s their biggest concern, but a private class action from every consumer, business and industry in the nation that could suffer a loss through increased electricity prices from Liddell closing.’’

Liberal Eric Abetz backed the push, saying the competition watchdog should do “everything within its power to deal with what is clearly a misuse of market power”.

Senator Abetz said the government should either reform competition law or nationalise Liddell if the ACCC did not have the power to force a sale.

Competition law expert Hank Spier said it would be difficult to penalise AGL for not wanting to sell one of its assets.

He said it would be “almost impossible” to prove the company was taking Liddell offline with the intention of reducing competition and ­increasing energy prices.