DEAR News Of The Area,
WHEN Barnaby Joyce spruiked his private member’s bill to abolish net zero by 2050, I couldn’t understand how he could claim that net zero was why pensioners are having to pay high power bills.
He implied that removing a target 25 years away would somehow have the immediate effect of making pensioners’ electricity bills ‘affordable’.
The root cause of today’s high electricity prices is not the net zero target.
It is the Coalition’s failure over 10 years to deliver an energy policy that gave business the certainty it needed to invest huge amounts of money in the new energy generation needed to replace ageing, unreliable and end-of-life coal fired power stations.
Less electricity in the system and more demand for it means the price goes up.
The more it costs to generate a unit of electricity, the more consumers will have to pay for it.
This is not rocket science.
We now have to play catch-up for that decade of policy neglect and unfortunately for Mr Joyce’s argument, the cheapest form of energy is now renewable energy.
Walking away from adding more renewable energy to the grid will guarantee that consumers, especially pensioners, will pay even higher power bills than they do now.
Walking away from net zero means a return to energy policy uncertainty and higher electricity bills.
It appears Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals are fighting tooth and nail for the reputation of being the party that guarantees consumers have to pay higher electricity bills.
Regards,
Stephen OTTAWAY,
Red Rock.
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