ABBOTT ENERGY ANSWER BACKED

AUSTRALIA’S competition watchdog yesterday gave Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the media a slap: stop your anti-Abbott hysteria.

Just because Tony Abbott suggests something, don’t knock it. In this case, Abbott’s right.

True, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s report on soaring electricity prices doesn’t put it like that, but that’s its clear take-out.

First, it says, global warming schemes and deals like the Paris agreement “have been problematic” and at times “have hurt consumers”, especially when coal-fired power stations have shut.

Hasn’t Abbott, the former PM, said exactly that, and called for Australia to tear up the Paris deal? And hasn’t the media pack abused him as a wrecker?

But the ACCC goes even further in backing Abbott. Remember Abbott’s call – backed by his Monash Group of MPs and the National Party – for the government to invest or subsidise new coal-fired power stations to cut prices?

As Abbott put it: “(One) alternative might be to go the market seeking the best bids for … baseload power for the next 30 years, with the government bearing any carbon price risk.”

The ACCC recommended something similar – that the government guarantee to buy the electricity of new, cheap generators.