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Increased electricity costs impact on pensioners, Minister doesn’t care.
By natasha | June 11, 2009
The Australian Pensioners’ and Superannuants’ League, Qld Inc. (APSL) have opposed Full Retail Contestability (FRC) of the distribution of electricity since its inception.
In this regard, in its advocacy and research, the APSL has drawn heavily on experiences in other states where FRC had been introduced earlier and demonstrated quite clearly that this has led to significant increases in the cost of electricity to consumers and in particular impacting on pensioners and other disadvantaged people.
Clearly, as a result of this recent announced increase of nearly 16%, the position and opposition taken by the APSL to FRC has proven to be correct.
Ever since the introduction of Full Retail Contestability, there has been an increase in the price we pay for electricity by approximately 35%.
While the Minister of Mines & Energy, Mr Stephen Robertson buries his head in the sand and simply fobs off the increases as being natural and necessary to maintain energy supply and then advisors consumers to shop around for a better deal. Spare a thought for those consumers, thousands of pensioners, seniors and other disadvantage people living outside of South East Queensland who are subjected to the regulated tariff and cannot shop around.
The previous Minister for Mines and Energy, Mr Geoff Wilson, regularly consulted with the Energy Consumer Reference Group which included the APSL on all issues regarding changes in the costs of energy, particularly impacting on pensioners and other disadvantaged people. To date, the Energy Consumer Reference Group has not been consulted by the newly appointed Minister.
Over the last few days, since the price increase was announced to the public, the APSL has been inundated with phone calls from worried consumers demanding the ‘re-regulation’ and ‘government intervention’ in this out of control energy pricing mechanism.
Raymond Ferguson, APSL Policy Coordinator says that “the APSL will continue in conjunction with other consumer organisations to take whatever action is necessary to bring about a change.
Topics: Lobbying activities |
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