http://www.copyright link/content/dam/images/g/u/x/7/y/e/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.gws30w.png/1497602061114.jpg "The rise in energy prices demonstrates how crucial it is for Dr Finkel's recommendations to be translated into action," Job Briskin, Origin's head of retail, said.
Origin Energy has intensified the energy pain for households and business by announcing huge power price hikes of $750 to $920 a year for average small firms in NSW and South Australia and $282-$313 for households.
Origin's 2017 power prices will be up 15-18 per cent in NSW and SA from July 1. EnergyAustralia, AGL Energy and ActewAGL have already announced price increases of up to 20 per cent, adding $1000 a year to the annual power and gas bills of some households and firms. The huge increases come at a time when household budgets are already under pressure from flat wages and huge mortgages, underlining the scale of the energy challenge for the Turnbull government.
Small firms are also reeling. Tom Leslie, chief financial officer of JT Johnson & Sons, said soaring power prices were making the Kapunda, SA, feed pellet manufacturer less competitive. http://www.copyright link/content/dam/images/g/w/s/x/9/l/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1497601851485.png The company serves the live cattle and sheep trade and saw its power bill double to $1.6 million last year. It faces an increase of as much as 20 per cent next January when its current contract expires.
"Margins in the industry are already tight as it is so any increase hurts," Mr Leslie said. "At the end of the day people sourcing animals and feed are going to stop in other ports." Finkel 'now crucial'
Like EnergyAustralia, Origin urged policymakers to embrace the Finkel review of energy to help curb further price increases, amid a fierce debate in the Turnbull government over the Finkel review's assurance that its plan will result in lower prices than doing nothing. "The rise in energy prices demonstrates how crucial it is for Dr Finkel's recommendations to be translated into action," Jon Briskin, Origin's head of retail, said. He blamed the increases on soaring wholesale power prices amid the energy transition. http://www.copyright link/content/dam/images/g/w/s/x/a/8/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1497601886617.png Treasurer Scott Morrison said the price spikes underscored that business as usual would no longer suffice.
"As long as there's politics as usual on energy policy, there'll be business as usual on energy policy which means prices will continue to increase, and they'll be unsustainable, unaffordable," he said.
"A stable system that has a certainty in the grid for baseload power and that, of course, meets our emissions reduction obligations. That's what our plan is designed to deliver."
But dissident Coalition MPs are becoming more vocal and advocating a grab-bag of left-field solutions, from government built coal power stations and nuclear power to abolition of the National Electricity Market and much stronger intervention in the gas market including price controls. http://www.copyright link/content/dam/images/g/w/s/f/m/v/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1497583082835.png Origin's power and gas prices are going up on 1 July Origin Energy Build nukes, axe NEM
Malcolm Turnbull has already threatened to invoke Constitutional powers to limit gas exports to ensure adequate domestic supply but some MPs want direct intervention to control gas prices, through a gas reserve or price control.
One MP said gas price control may be deemed anti-competitive and leave the government exposed to legal action but the alternative was "tens of thousands of jobs lost".
Origin is also hiking gas prices 6-9 per cent in NSW and SA, raising annual bills for average small businesses by $312 in NSW and $533 in SA. http://www.copyright link/content/dam/images/g/u/9/7/a/z/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1487142464917.jpg Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison brought a lump of black coal to Parliament in February but now strongly backs the Finkel review Alex Ellinghausen The average Queensland household will pay an extra $61 a year for power and just $16 for gas, while the average small firm will pay an extra $276 for power and $106 for gas.
The political debate has become heated at times, with former prime minister Tony Abbott telling a junior minister to "go f--k yourself" during a party room debate, The Australian Financial Review's Laura Tingle reported on Friday. Power prices have nearly doubled in a decade, and Mr Abbott and his supporters have blamed climate policies and the Renewable Energy Target for forcing more costly and intermittent wind and solar power and forcing cheap coal power out.
But the Finkel review says wind and solar power are now cheaper than power from new coal plant, even without a carbon price and in the case of wind even with some storage, and will become more competitive as prices fall and take the lion's share of the generation market from coal over the next two decades. http://www.copyright link/content/dam/images/g/w/q/w/1/z/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1497583082923.png
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