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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-09-04 Daily Xml
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Electricity Prices

Mr DULUK (Waite) (14:12): My question is to the Minister for Energy and Mining. Can the minister update the house on the latest energy retail offers comparison report from the Essential Services Commission of South Australia?

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Before I call the minister, I warn the member for West Torrens for a first time.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens will cease interjecting or he will be departing. Minister.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:12): Yes, I can update the house. Thank you very much to the member for Waite, who has an ongoing interest on behalf of his constituents in getting the price of electricity down. In fact, I remember him inviting me as a shadow minister to come to his electorate before the last election to talk about exactly this. I know that the most recent member for Waite before him certainly didn't do anything like that.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: ESCOSA, on 31 August, released their report, a report that compared electricity and gas retail prices in South Australia for the most recent financial year, the 2017-18 financial year, to the previous financial year. It won't surprise anybody to know that those prices went up. They went up alarmingly. I will give some of the detail. For example, household electricity prices went up by between 14 and 18 per cent, which saw South Australian households paying between $268 and $405 more per year. Household gas customers were also penalised with higher prices, between 3 and 10 per cent higher, which meant between a $30 and $106 increase in their costs.

Small business electricity bills increased between 13 and 17 per cent, which equated to a $516 to a $750 per year annual increase. Small business gas customers similarly had between a 6 and 12 per cent increase, which equated to a between $308 and $717 increase for gas. ESCOSA quantified those numbers. They gave us the facts and the detail to essentially tell us what we all knew: that under the last Labor government, households and businesses were penalised by their energy policy—absolutely penalised.

What was even worse is that when this report came out, all the opposition could do was say that the government's policies are no good. The prices that were paid for the last financial year were a direct result of the former government's policies. They should be ashamed of themselves—absolutely ashamed of themselves. We have policies that will bring electricity prices down for all households and businesses in South Australia.

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