Carbon price the key to ending Australia’s energy woes

The primary reason for the doubling of electricity prices in the past decade is the failure by successive federal governments to listen to the market.

We have reached an absurd impasse.

he industry itself is saying there is no rational future for coal-fired power generation in Australia.

And yet an avowedly pro-market Coalition government – having intervened some months ago in the gas market with threats to block exports and more recently in the retail electricity market by jawboning sellers into writing to customers about cheaper offerings – is now trying to force one of the biggest operators, AGL, to extend the life of Australia's oldest coal-fired station, NSW's Liddell.

This policy, if continued, will merely enrich AGL with taxpayers' funds and cause further costly delays in the transition to low-emission, low-cost power.

Read the Editorial in today’s Melbourne Age - “Carbon price the key to ending Australia’s energy woes.”