Why you're about to pay through the nose for power
Author: ABC News Date Posted:20 June 2017
It was a rare moment of triumph for a prime minister frustrated in his dealings with a difficult Senate.
Just on three years ago, a jubilant Tony Abbott — having just secured agreement to vanquish the carbon tax, the handbrake on the Australian economy — appeared on national television.
Australian households would be $550 a year better off with the removal of the "toxic" carbon tax, he declared. Gas prices would fall 7 per cent.
Electricity prices would drop 9 per cent. Everyone would be a winner, he told 7.30's Leigh Sales.
"Because the price of power is a component of just about every price in the economy. When the price of power falls, other prices should go down as well," he said.
Yep, it should. Except when it doesn't.
Ever since the carbon tax was removed, power prices have only headed one way; upwards. This, at a time when oil prices have halved and coal slumped.
