Two years ago Anthony Albanese promised that he would cut your power bills by $275 if he were elected Prime Minister.
I do not know a single person who has received their lower electricity bill yet.
Instead, despite the PM’s promises, electricity bills have skyrocketed.
When Mr Albanese was elected Prime Minister, the average annual electricity bill for a regional Queensland homeowner was $1,290.
Today, the average annual bill is $1,926, a $636 increase.
These figures are just for the average household. If you use more than average amounts of power, your bill will be even higher.
For a while the PM blamed Vladimir Putin. That was despite the invasion of Ukraine occurring three months before he was elected.
In any case, the turmoil that was unleashed on energy markets, which followed the outbreak of war in Ukraine, has now subsided.
Coal, oil and gas prices are back to near the levels they were before the war.
The Government is out of excuses for why it can’t deliver on what it promised.
Worse, the Australian Energy Regulator’s Default Market Offer report, released this week, shows that we are unlikely to get any price relief soon.
This report sets “default” electricity prices that must be offered by the major energy retailers.
They operate a bit like a price cap, although you have to ask to be put on the default rate.
For Queenslanders, electricity prices will continue to rise next year.
Although smaller than previous years increases, Energex bills are set to increase by $53.
The bills charged to regional Queenslanders, by Ergon, are set through a different process but they closely track the Energex figures.
If we get the same price increase as Energex customers, then Queensland power bills will be, on average, $689 higher since Anthony Albanese was elected, and almost $1000 higher than what Anthony Albanese promised.
Electricity bills for some customers in New South Wales and South Australia are set to decrease but this is only because the regulator reduced the profit margins it allows electricity companies to make through a sleight of hand.
In previous year’s calculations, the regulator builds in a profit margin that encourages smaller entrants to enter the market.
Because of high inflation and the cost of living crisis, the regulator has decided to remove this “headroom” using the “any related matter” provision of its regulations.
This seems like a pretty dodgy way of giving people a $1 per week saving on their power bill.
If this headroom is needed to generate competition what happens where there is less competition in the future?
Further, given that most retailers offer prices below the default offer they can just increase the price of these contracts to compensate.
The simple fact is that electricity prices and the costs of getting electricity to you are going up because we are investing in power sources that are not reliable and are not concentrated.
Renewable energy leaves huge gaps at night and when it is not windy.
And it becomes increasingly costly to provide power during these periods.
Renewable energy is also spread over enormous areas requiring the building (according to the Government) of 10,000 kilometres of more power lines.
You will have to pay for these through your power bills.
While we obsess over solar and wind factories, the United States just announced that they produced more oil in one year than any nation ever has. So much for net zero emissions.
This, and the associated production of gas, has sent gas prices crashing in the US to under A$3 per gigajoule, less than a third of what they are in Australia.
This is making energy in the US cheap. Last week a major Australian manufacturer, Orica, announced that it is moving jobs to the US because of the energy price advantage.
The lesson is simple. If you want cheaper energy we have to increase the supply of energy.
If the PM wants to have any hope of delivering his electricity price promise he must unleash the use of more coal, gas and uranium.
