The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART), New South Wales’ pricing regulator has committed the state to significant increases in electricity prices despite Kevin Rudd pushing back an emissions trading scheme (ETS) until 2013.
Within New South Wales, homeowners and businesses were to see price increases of anywhere from 46 percent up to 64 percent depending on where they live and their current supplier over the next 3 years.
However NSW Energy Minister John Robertson says the ETS delay will cut the IPART approved price increases for Integral Energy customers by half, with customers of Energy Australia and Country Energy only seeing their price increase cut by a third.
The significant increases in electricity prices to be inflicted on NSW households despite the clawback of the ETS increase is seen as evidence of poor investment decisions by the NSW Labor Government by the opposition’s Duncan Gay.
“The fact is that 42 per cent increases remain and of that 42 per cent every dollar, every cent comes from the state government,” he said.
“This is the cost of them not renewing the infrastructure over the last decade or so and those costs remain.”
Energy Minister John Robertson was quick to point out that the NSW government’s planned electricity assistance package will still be available to struggling households despite the lower than expected increase.
“We’ll still pay the energy rebate. We’ll still index it in line with energy increases,” he said.
