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Canberra Today 15°/17° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Power shock: carbon tax cruels winter bills

ACT households will cop a whopping 17 per cent increase in electricity bills from July 1 as recommended by the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission.

Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Simon Corbell said the proposed price increase is largely due to the impact of the price on carbon.

Although, he says, the Federal Government will provide monetary compensation to about 90 per cent of household across Australia to deal with this cost of living pressure.

“Even after this price increase has been factored into a household bill, Canberrans are still forecast to have the lowest electricity bills out of all states and territories, and remain, on average, around 32 per cent below an equivalent household’s bill in NSW,” he said.

“The carbon tax is an important reform to the way Australia deals with carbon emissions and the Commonwealth Government has responsibly approached the anticipated costs of such an emissions pricing scheme by rolling out compensation to approximately 90 per cent of Australian households.”

According to the ICRC’s draft electricity price determination: 76 per cent is attributed to wholesale electricity costs, largely impacted by the Federal carbon price; and 22 per cent is attributed to network charges including, electricity poles, wires and associated infrastructure.

It also stated that green costs had decreased by 17 per cent meaning that electricity users were not paying as much for renewable energy generation.

Greens energy spokesperson Shane Rattenbury said the report highlights that renewables are the future.

“Green energy costs are down by 17 per cent in this price determination, while dirty coal costs are up dramatically,” he said. “This just underlines that coal is a dinosaur, and that the best policy is to get renewables online as quickly as possible.

“The bottom line is that price of renewables keeps going down, and the price of coal keeps going up. The best thing we can do to protect people from price hikes in the future is increase our renewable energy uptake.”

ActewAGL general manager retail Ayesha Razzaq said despite the cost of energy going up, the ACT will continue to have the lowest electricity prices in the country.

“In this decision there is no increase in the retail margin to ActewAGL,” she said. “The main reason for this price increase is due to the introduction of a price on carbon. In fact, of the 17.2 per cent increase, approximately 13 per cent, or $3.65 a week, is as a direct result of carbon.

“This is in line with the Federal Government’s forecast when the price on carbon was announced in July 2011.

“The other main contributor to the price increase is the ongoing need for investment in electricity infrastructure, including upgrading and expanding the electricity network as our city continues to grow.”

She said there were one or two aspects that ActewAGL were concerned about.

“As such, ActewAGL will be raising some matters with the ICRC which will need to be considered,” Ms Razzaq said.

Opposition Leader Zed Seselja said it’s clear that the policies of Labor and the Greens at both a Federal and local level are placing massive cost burdens on Canberra families.

“Katy Gallagher supports the carbon tax which has added this huge 17 per cent increase to Canberrans’ already stretched budgets,” he said.

“Today’s hit comes her after government has already doubled rates in many suburbs, will add $225 to bills to pay for the solar feed-in tariff, and have tripled water bills, with more increases to come due to their inability to manage the Cotter Dam.

“If it weren’t for the Labor/Green’s massive carbon tax, Canberrans’ electricity bills would only have increased by $55. Instead, they’re being slugged with a $189 carbon tax component.

“The Canberra Liberals are very concerned about the Canberrans who will cop this massive cost of living hit from the Labor Government, and the businesses which are already doing it tough and will now be fleeced even further by the government.”

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