Power regulators betray all of us

The ludicrously named Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Operator have been exposed as compromising their obligations.

Energy minister Chris Bowen.

Both the now obviously ludicrously named Australian Energy Regulator and its fellow quango the Australian Energy Market Operator have been exposed as compromising their obligations in desperate attempts to keep the lights on as the minster for destroying our electricity system blunders on.

Attempts, though, which will add billions of dollars to future electricity bills; and add those – ever-escalating – sums quite literally, forever.

The CIS – the Centre for Independent Studies – has nailed AER for repeatedly waiving through rule breaches, to desperately ‘fast-track’ build-out of the grid to accommodate all the useless so-called renewable energy projects.

CIS has an expert opinion from a KC, James Glissan, that the claims by AER’s chairman, Claire Savage, of its right to grant waivers of the rules “does not appear to exist other than in the mind of the regulator”.

“It is not to be found in the legislative instruments”, according to Glissan.

Specifically, AER, rather that requiring AEMO to follow the rules, had allowed AEMO to skip the consultation process that might expose unrealistic estimates of the benefits of these projects, says CIS Energy Program Director, Aidan Morrison.

And at the same time, according to Morrison, AEMO kept revising up the net benefits claimed for these projects, to justify continuing with them.

Figures, Morrison added, that just “don’t add up”. Indeed, for projects that arguably should be abandoned.

Most damning of all, according to Morrison, there appeared to be a “co-ordinated push between AEMO, AER and the Energy (sic) Minister Chris Bowen to avoid scrutiny”.

With AER redacting key documents, obtained under FOI, that might explain how AER and AEMO had worked together to avoid that necessary scrutiny.

At the very least, this makes an utter mockery of AER’s core claim to be an “independent regulator” – yeah, right - aimed at making “energy consumers better off, now and in the future”.

Worse, it indicates a regulator prepared to abandon its legislative duty. And to abandon consumers.

WHOOPS

The rather important word ‘not’ went missing from a sentence in yesterday’s column. As they say: my bad.

A key sentence should have read: “The best that could be said about the inflation numbers was that they did not demand a rate hike.”

This would have, should have, reinforced the rest of the column, making clear that the Reserve Bank will leave its official interest rate unchanged next Tuesday fortnight.

This was further reinforced by the January retail sales figures from the ABS on Thursday, showing – properly interpreted – consumer spending being at best soggy, and arguably seriously and disturbingly weak.

The data, as even the ABS recognises, has been confused to compromised by the ‘Black Friday’ phenomenon, where spending has shifted from the lead-up to Christmas to November.

One statistic, though, captures the reality. Sales in January were just 1.1 per cent higher than January 2023.

With inflation of, maybe, 4 per cent, that means real sales were down around 3 per cent.

That further means, real per capita sales were down more like 5 per cent.

Heck, the big question is: has the economy merely slowed or hit the wall big time?

Originally published as Power regulators betray all of us