By Andrew Bolt ~
Brendan Pearson, chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia, on how green policies made our power prices among the world’s highest – and for what?.
Less than a decade ago, Australia enjoyed the lowest energy costs in the developed world… But today that advantage has largely gone.
As a result of the carbon tax, the renewable energy target and a range of other energy policy interventions at the federal and state government level, Australia has some of the highest electricity costs in the developed world.
Household electricity prices have increased by more than 110 per cent in the past five years… Australian businesses – which account for 70 per cent of total electricity use in Australia – have experienced an almost 80 per cent increase in prices since 2009 and there are more rises on the way.
The causes are not hard to find.
The carbon tax accounted for 16 per cent of the electricity bill for a typical large industrial user in NSW in 2012-13.
In 2013-14, the carbon tax added an estimated $6.4 billion to the nation’s tax bill…. Official estimates suggest that the RET will generate a transfer of $20bn from householders and industrial users by 2020…
These green policies are helping to destroy manufacturing in Australia. But even Pearson shies away from nailing the true insanity of them: the carbon tax and renewable energy target actually make essentially zero difference to the global temperature they are meant to lower. All this astonishing pain for zero gain. The scale of the madness is for most Australians simply beyond comprehension.
UPDATE
And workers and the poor pay most for this new religious mania of the disenchanted urban elite:
Alan Morris and Lynne Chester, The Conversation, September 20, 2012:
AN increasing number of low-income households are suffering from energy poverty … the lowest 20 per cent of Australian households had an average weekly income of $314. Their average expenditure on household energy was 7 per cent of disposable income, three times more than the wealthiest households … The Salvation Army recently found that in regional NSW, just over half the people are going without meals to pay for electricity. A third of these people could not afford to heat their homes. Many … were plagued by constant anxiety and depression was common …
Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.
Andrew Bolt’s columns appear in Melbourne’s Herald Sun, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Adelaide’s Advertiser. He runs the most-read political blog in Australia and hosts Channel 10’s The Bolt Report each Sunday at 10am. He is also heard from Monday to Friday at 8am on the breakfast show of radio station MTR 1377, and his book Still Not Sorry remains very widely read.
Read more excellent articles from Andrew Bolt’s Blog . http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/
