More聽privatisations of public assets are聽in store for聽New South Wales as聽Premier Dominic Perrottet refuses聽to rule out more sell-offs. Jim McIlroy reports.
electricity
Are small-scale nuclear power reactors the key to dealing with the high cost of electricity in South Australia? Someone in the policy apparatus of Labor Premier Jay Weatherill seems to think so.
Adelaide鈥檚 Channel 7 splashed the story across its news reports on September 7: the nuclear power option was being officially explored!
鈥淎 top-level report clearly indicates small-scale reactors have been on the short-term radar,鈥 the channel stated.
NSW Premier Mike Baird has pushed ahead with plans to privatise the state's power network, without waiting for the results of the NSW election in March next year.
The Stop the Sell Off campaign has condemned the move, saying it makes a mockery of the premier's claim that he would seek a mandate from voters before pressing on with the sale of 49% of the state-owned electricity network businesses Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy, Transgrid and Essential Energy.
A report commissioned by the Victorian branch of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) shows that energy sector privatisation in Australia has been "a dismal failure", which has produced "no benefits" for consumers, but has resulted in "large fiscal losses" for taxpayers.
Economist John Quiggin, from the University of Queensland, reviewed energy sector privatisation and the related process of electricity market reform between the early 1990s and now, and found no long-term benefits for either governments or consumers.
The released this statement on July 1
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Unions have criticised today鈥檚 announcement of the sale of power generator Eraring Energy as a 鈥渇ire sale鈥 that fails to realise the true value of the asset for NSW taxpayers.
Power industry unions said it was absurd to sell off the profit-making enterprise, which delivered almost $140 million in profits last year alone, for just $50 million.
Australia鈥檚 big electricity generators are feeling the squeeze of electricity demand falling in recent years and growing competition from renewable energy.
This year, some environmentalists criticised the federal government for scrapping the 鈥渃ontracts for closure鈥 negotiations, which would have made the federal government compensate operators to close up to 2000 megawatts of coal-fired power stations. However, more than 2000 megawatts of coal power plant has now been closed or 鈥渕othballed鈥 across the country without paying the contracts for closure.
Coal seam gas (CSG) advocates are running a fear campaign against a backdrop of soaring electricity prices in New South Wales. They claim that unless CSG development in NSW goes ahead, household gas bills will triple.
This is a frightening idea, given the stress already caused by electricity price hikes.
Over the past four years on top of inflation. Users face a further 18% price hike this year.
The NSW government has decided to cut the solar photovoltaic feed-in tariff from 60 cents per kilowatt hour (kW/h) to 20 cents per kW/h.
The October 27 announcement came after the tariff received a strong uptake, particularly in Sydney鈥檚 western suburbs and rural NSW. The total capacity once remaining orders are connected will be around 193 megawatts (MW).
The Greens and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) slammed the decision to axe the tariff.