March 29, 2016
Proposed power price rises will hit South Burnett irrigators hard, Member for Nanango Deb Frecklington has warned.
The Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) last week released its draft determination on regulated electricity prices.
It proposes increases in regulated electricity prices for 2016-17 of between 9.3 per cent and 13.6 per cent for small business customers and 10.2 per cent to 10.6 per cent for larger businesses.
The average residential bill could rise from $1457 a year to $1465.
Farmers on transitional and obsolete tariffs face increases of between 10.3 per cent and 11.5 per cent if the draft becomes the final determination in May.
Mrs Frecklington said the proposal would mean 10.3 per cent hike for irrigation farmers, adding extra stress and strain to farming families already doing it tough.
“Between the drought and floods our region has experienced over the past few years, and spiralling business costs, a power price slug would be a devastating blow for farmers across the South Burnett,” Mrs Frecklington said.
“While our irrigation farmers are struggling, the silence from the Palaszczuk Labor Government in Brisbane is deafening.
“Labor’s Energy Minister Mark Bailey should come up here and meet with farmers across the South Burnett region to see to impact of his inaction.
“I’ve had many local primary producers contact my office to explain how rising energy costs are severely impacting their businesses.”
Shadow Energy Minister Andrew Powell said it was unbelievable to see that Labor’s Energy Minister had been “sitting on his hands” when the government had been given options.
“The Queensland Productivity Commission recommended earlier this year that the government should develop an industry assistance arrangement to help farmers transition from the existing regulated tariffs,” Mr Powell said.
“This assistance package would be a lifeline for farmers across the State doing it tough but the Palaszczuk Labor Government has yet to even respond to the draft QPC recommendations.
“With the shift to new tariffs by 2020, businesses – mainly in the agricultural sector – could face power price increases of up to 50 per cent.”
Queensland Farmers’ Federation president Stuart Armitage also criticised the draft determination, saying the QCA did not appear to have read media statements by the Premier and the Energy Minister last October that there was a prospect of “stable electricity prices over the next few years”.
“This draft determination undermines any hope in the farming and business sector that the current process for electricity tariff regulation can drive down costs and promote competition into the electricity sector,” he said.
Mr Armitage said the proposed increases were unsustainable.
“For the farming sector there is little comfort in the comments by the chair of the QCA (Prof Roy Green) indicating that without the State Government’s Uniform Tariff Policy in rural and regional Queensland electricity prices would have been 23 per cent higher,” he said.
“We value this policy but if the electricity price regulators are unable to rein in ongoing electricity cost increases, the level of protection provided by the subsidy will be eroded.
“QFF is increasingly aware that farmers are now questioning whether they can afford the uncertainty and costs of depending too heavily on grid connection into the future.”
- Related article: Electricity Prices Set To Rise
