Why you’re about to pay through the nose for power THANKS to Tony Abbott

Business leaders pleaded for partisan support for the Finkel report’s findings, but with partisan breakdown over energy policy erupting yet again, power prices only have one way to go — up.

Just on three years ago, a jubilant Tony Abbott — having just secured agreement to vanquish the carbon tax, the handbrake on the Australian economy — appeared on national television.

Australian households would be $550 a year better off with the removal of the “toxic” carbon tax, he declared. Gas prices would fall 7 per cent.

Why gas prices won’t fall

These giant tankers carrying Australian gas to Asia are the reason why domestic prices will stay high, writes Michael Janda.

Electricity prices would drop 9 per cent. Everyone would be a winner, he told 7.30’s Leigh Sales.

“Because the price of power is a component of just about every price in the economy. When the price of power falls, other prices should go down as well,” he said.

Yep, it should. Except when it doesn’t.

Ever since the carbon tax was removed, power prices have only headed one way; upwards. This, at a time when oil prices have halved and coal slumped.

And then last week, Australians were greeted with alarming headlines like this in The Australian: POWER PRICE HIKE SHOCK SPREADS.

Source: Why you’re about to pay through the nose for power – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)