ENERGY CRISIS ROLLS ON WHILE GOVERNMENT STILL REFUSES TO ACT

Another day, another warning about the devastating impact of the Turnbull Government’s energy policy paralysis.

 

Just a day after Treasurer Scott Morrison said, “politics as usual on energy policy, has led to business as usual, which has meant ever increasing electricity prices”, analysts at Citi Group have confirmed rising energy costs will hit business profits hard, by as much as 14 per cent.

 

Industry, experts, the Treasurer, the Energy Minister and Labor have all previously pointed to the lack of national energy policy as the driving force behind a lack of investment certainty in the electricity sector and resulting price hikes. Yet the Government is still unable to agree on the Chief Scientist’s Alan Finkel’s key recommendation of a Clean Energy Target (CET) to end the policy chaos and bring prices and carbon pollution under control.

 

Only today, Environment and Energy Minister Frydenberg said of a CET, “I don’t think it’s green theology to get certainty into the market to drive prices down”. Yet he is still unable to deliver.

 

Meanwhile, in California, the Managing Director of Clean Energy Fund Danny Kennedy, has expressed dismay at Australia’s lack of progress in transitioning to clean energy.

 

Citing California’s progress towards their 50 percent 2030 renewable energy target, Mr Kennedy has said, “This works and we've got 300,000 jobs out of it. If you want an analogy, it's like Australia is still talking about the telegraph and California is building the internet."

 

Building on their success, California is currently debating whether to increase their 2030 renewable energy target to 60 per cent or whether to instead implement a 100 percent target by 2045.

 

The contrast with Australia under the Liberals couldn’t be starker.

 

We have lost 1 in 3 renewable energy jobs since the Liberals formed government, while wholesale electricity prices have doubled and carbon pollution is once again rising. In fact, only last night the Government released new data showing carbon pollution has risen by 1.6 percent in the last quarter alone.

 

It is long past time the Turnbull Government get its act in order and commit to working with Labor to implement a CET and get electricity prices and carbon pollution under control.

 

Labor, like all Australians, is sick of waiting for the Government to get its act together.