What Kean promised
Two years ago today, Energy Minister Matt Kean promised the government’s energy policies would lower energy bills for households and small businesses.
On 10 November 2020, Minister Kean told the parliament:
“The typical customer’s electricity bills are expected to be lower too, with residential customers expected to save an average of around $130 each year and small businesses around $430 each year, after accounting for the cost of the new schemes for transmission, generation and storage.”
What he delivered
Since then, the average wholesale electricity spot price has more than quadrupled from $72/MWh to $300/MWh.
Electricity bills are expected to jump up to an additional 56 per cent in the next two years.
This follows NSW electricity prices increasing by 25.3% in the last quarter, meaning energy bills will effectively double by 2024.
Every household, family and business in New South Wales knows that Matt Kean’s energy claim could not be further from reality.
Kean on privatisation
Matt Kean has tried to shift the blame for power price surges on everything else but his own Government . But we all know there is an elephant in the room.
The truth is, Dominic Perrottet and Matt Kean’s ideological obsession with privatisation, especially of our state’s energy assets, has made a tough situation much worse.
His government’s decision to privatise two of the three energy distributors in New South Wales has led to super profits for those two privatised utilities, according to the Institute for Energy, Economics, and Financial Analysis.
The privatised Endeavour Energy and Ausgrid have charged people an additional $100 – $200 per year.
This is compared to the state-owned Essential Energy, which has increased its prices by a mere $10 per year.
In 2015 Matt Kean told the parliament, “privatisation would result in a more efficient network and therefore lower prices for consumers.”
Years later it is clear that this is not true. Every time the cost of energy goes up, Matt Kean’s broken promise to lower the cost of energy gets worse and worse.
Matt Kean returns from his trip on Saturday.
Jihad Dib, NSW Shadow Minister for Energy & Climate Change, said:
“Two years ago, Matt Kean promised lower power bills, but every household and family knows they’re surging.
“Matt Kean’s obsession with privatisation has led the people of this state down the garden path.
“By selling off our state’s energy assets, the people of New South Wales have been left vulnerable to severe price spikes, and has made a tough situation much, much worse.”
JIHAD DIB MP
NSW SHADOW MINISTER FOR ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE
