The East Coast gas cartel is eating vulnerable Australians alive.
A record number of people are struggling to pay their energy bills, the Australian Energy Regulator has said in a report that highlights the toll of Australia’s cost of living crisis that is sapping support for the federal Labor government.
The AER said 1.9 per cent of customers are on hardship payment plans as of June 30, up from the 1.4 per cent record one year earlier.
The AER said more than 130,000 households are on payment plans now, up from 95,634 last year.
More.
NSW Tenants’ Union chief executive Leo Patterson Ross called for a more comprehensive housing affordability measure so policymakers could better plan for housing.
“It is really important that we recognise that housing is very central to a range of elements in our lives,” Patterson Ross said.
“There is a clear relationship between energy costs and the cost of rental. Lower quality housing is generally more energy inefficient so it might appear you’re paying less rent but if your energy bill is higher than that rent cost saving is upped out.
Meanwhile, God save us from the Australian media.
On the right, we have Judith Sloan.
The problem is that both these slogans have little analytical content and cannot, and should not, be used as organising principles for governing. The idea that Australia can become a renewable energy superpower is fanciful, even if we can agree on a definition for the term. As for things being made in Australia, we are heading in the direction of making fewer things, not more.
…The Albanese government would be well-advised to reconsider its adherence to far-fetched slogans such as renewable energy superpower and making things in Australia. The preferred alternative is to focus on the fundamentals, including the provision of affordable and reliable energy. Without this, there can be no future for large-scale manufacturing. It also underpins living standards for households.
…Many voters will be baffled by the idea of being a renewable energy superpower because of the recent restrictions on the use of electricity in NSW after several 30-degree days. Households were told to turn down their airconditioners – how does this make sense? – and refrain from using their dishwashers and other appliances. Large-scale industry was instructed to power down. Does this sound like a situation in which investors would be attracted to throw money at new energy-using plants?
A growing list of countries are turning to nuclear energy to meet their energy needs while constraining the growth of carbon dioxide emissions. We should take note, given it is clear that intermittent and short-lived renewable energy requiring expensive backup just won’t cut it.
Sure. Except, imagine for a moment how expensive publicly constructed nuclear power will be. Whatever the quoted figure, times it by infinity as the parasites come to feast.
Speaking of which, why is Sloan taking such umbrage with being an energy superpower by comparing it to Australia’s failing network without ever addressing the real elephant in the room?
That elephant is gas.
Whether our baseload power comes from renewables or nuclear, the key ingredient is still gas for the next thirty years.
Only gas provides the surge power capacity we need while the transition goes ahead, and probably afterwards as well.
It’s probably not relevant that Sloan is a former board member at gas export cartelier Santos.
Meanwhile, retards on the left can’t see past the name “Murdoch” on anything. Although Crikey did manage to deliver one line of value.
This week, the News Corp tabloids ran front pages proclaiming the beginning of the “Dark Ages” and insisting Australia “Step On The Gas” in pursuit of rectifying “Australia’s gas shortage”.
That is all that matters. Australia needs more domestically produced and priced gas to break the East Coast gas export cartel.
Some of this could be increased supply. All should be domestically reserved, export levied, or taxed and rebated.
Whatever we do, the one prerequisite that matters is that the East Coast gas cartel is broken and Australian gas markets are disconnected from global pricing.
Otherwise, next, the cartel will come next for the middle- and upper classes in a dark age that neither Newscorp nor Crikey has yet imagined because all real estate interests will be annihilated.
