ALP promise to cap power prices

THE time for intervention in the electricity market is now, Tasmanian Labor says, after documents disclosed under Right to Information revealed the state government sought extensive advice last year on relieving steep price hikes.

Labor’s Energy spokesman Dean Winter MP accused the state government of squibbing the advice, which was included in multiple ministerial minutes to Treasurer Michael Ferguson and Energy Minister Guy Barnett by Adrian Christian, the director of Renewables, Climate and Future Industries Tasmania.

The minutes were provided in May and June last year – both before and after the Tasmanian Economic Regulator approved an increase in standing offer prices of 11.88 per cent on June 17, 2022.

The policy options provided to Mr Barnett and Mr Ferguson were redacted in the documents.

The documents show that the state government’s previous promise to effectively de-link Tasmania’s wholesale energy prices from Victoria’s via the National Energy Market (NEM) had effectively lapsed on June 2, 2021.

“Increasingly, electricity prices in Tasmania will align more closely with those in Victoria, and the NEM,” Mr Christian told Mr Ferguson in a minute on May 25, 2022.

Mr Winter said on Sunday that the recent closure of the James Boag’s Visitor Centre and Brewery Experience – since reversed – showed that the state government should have intervened in the market, at least for “commercial and industrial customers”. “People don’t understand why we are paying mainland prices for Tasmanian electricity,” he said.

James Boag’s owner Lion cited its ballooning electricity bills as one reason for attempting to cut the loss-making tours.

Tasmanian Labor has proposed capping price increases for electricity at 2.5 per cent per annum for the next three years and providing rebates for large customers such as Boag’s.

Premier Jeremy Rockliff said Labor’s policy would come with a $50m price tag and challenged them to reveal where the cuts to fund it would come from.

“(Energy prices) are a national if not international challenge,” he said. “It’s important we set Tasmanians up for the future in terms of supply.”