The Chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Simms recently delivered a speech blaming overspending on ‘poles and wires’ and poor control by the Federal government as reasons why consumers are being charged as much as $3 billion extra on their electricity bills.
The majority of this has been in NSW, where a burden of at least $2 billion has been due to allowing higher allowances on borrowings. The poor managing of spending has meant that the Australian Energy Regulator has had little power to prevent excessive increases in the costs of power.
Mr Simms also commented that while many of the increases have been legitimate, some of the price increases have been unnecessary in a lot of instances and have harmed the competitiveness of the Australian economy.
