What Action Is the Government Taking Against Price Gouging by Privatised Energy Companies?

The privatisation of NSW's energy grid has led to skyrocketing costs, pushing nearly one-third of households to seek energy bill relief. In Parliament today, Abigail called on the Government to intervene to prevent further price gouging by rapacious private energy companies.

Abigail gave notice of the following motion:

I give notice that on the next sitting day I will move:

(1) That this House notes that:

the three biggest residential energy providers in NSW are Origin Energy, with 29% market share in NSW, Energy Australia, with 25%, and AGL, with 24%,
Origin Energy announced its profits had more than doubled in the last six months from $399 million to $995 million, and
AGL’s profits were up 78 percent in the latest earnings reports.

(2) That this House further notes that:

Australian households are being charged $1,000 a year more than big businesses to use exactly the same amount of electricity,
the NSW government provides over $330 million dollars in energy bill relief through the Energy Social Programs each year,
almost 1 in 3 households access energy bill relief programs provided by the NSW Government, and
the NSW Government is providing on average $1,200 per customer on an Energy Social Program in NSW.

(3) That this House condemns the failures of privatisation of the energy grid in NSW and calls on the NSW Government to urgently intervene to prevent rampant price gouging by predatory private energy providers.

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

NSW is missing out on tens of billions of dollars. By introducing a progressive coal royalty structure similar to the one in Queensland, we would have raised an extra $20 billion last year.

The NSW Government owns and controls, on behalf of the people of this state, the rights to the minerals and materials that naturally occur in NSW land.

Huge fossil fuel companies are only able to extract and sell these commodities with the consent of the State. It’s time they paid a fair price for that privilege.

The fossil fuel industry has made hundreds of billions of dollars out of their cosy relationship with governments. Granted permission to extract and sell coal, these large multinational fossil fuel corporations pay just over 7% in royalties back to the people of NSW – keeping the rest as mega-profits for themselves. These companies have a track record of taking more than their fair share and leaving communities suffering and stranded with poisoned groundwater, devastated landscapes and a stranded workforce when it suits their business models.

Globally, the hyper-inflation of fossil fuel prices driven by price-gouging opportunism and war profiteering from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered record windfall profits to these already obscenely wealthy corporations. In the last year, NSW coal exports totaled over $70 billion dollars, but the people of NSW will only see about 7 cents in every dollar, or about $6 billion dollars of that amount.

Rather than going toward schools, hospitals and public infrastructure, billions of dollars went into the pockets of multinational mining corporations. The Greens believe there should be more money for schools and hospitals and less for mining billionaires.

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

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What Action Is the Government Taking Against Price Gouging by Privatised Energy Companies?

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

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