MEDIA RELEASE FROM CRAIG INGRAM MP - MEMBER FOR GIPPSLAND EAST Issued: 26th November 2007

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Ingram stands alone on protecting rural electricity users

The Independent Member for Gippsland East, Craig Ingram, has condemned the two major parties and the National Party for again selling out rural and regional electricity consumers without guaranteeing protections on price and supply.

In State Parliament last week, Mr Ingram put forward his objections and outlined the inequities that have been built into the flawed privatisation model.

He was speaking on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2007, which aims to take Victoria’s “watchdog” capabilities for electricity and pass them to the Commonwealth. He was the only MP to vote against the Bill.

“This is the second tier of the COAG reforms passing over the pricing and regulation of electricity distribution costs and service to the Commonwealth that has gone through the state’s Lower House without adequate protections and guarantees to protect rural and regional power users from price hikes and supply interruptions,” Mr Ingram said.

“The major parties and the Nationals praised the privatisation of electricity as a great success, which is against the experiences of most electricity customers in my electorate.

“The State Labor Government still has not implemented its 1999 election commitment to have a maximum uniform tariff to protect rural consumers from having to bear the cost of the rural distribution network.

“To avoid this policy, the government has implemented a $110 million special Network Tariff Rebate (NTR) in an attempt to keep rural electricity prices manageable. This payment expires in March 2008.

“No commitment has been made to retain this payment, which will result in a great number of rural connections facing disproportionate high power bills from next year.

“The states are handing power over to the Commonwealth without addressing major problems with equity, service and price for rural consumers.

“The current bunch of National Party MPs lead by Peter Ryan has clearly not learned from there ideological support for policies that have a major detrimental impact on rural people… the same people that they purport to represent.

“For example, the privatisation model that the Nationals supported means that power consumers in country areas will forever pay a higher price for electricity through the costs of distribution, maintenance costs and line loss, which have been levied against rural consumers while metropolitan consumers were ‘ring fenced’ from these costs.

“On top of these disadvantages, the power companies are receiving massive rate subsidies from local council ratepayers, as well as huge water rate subsidies and discounts.

“The Labor, Liberal and National parties must justify why they continue to support a power industry that is riddled with massive inequities, unfair subsidies cost shifting to local government and ongoing problems with maintaining power prices and quality services in regional areas.

“They are offloading their responsibilities to regulate and manage the industry therefore entrenching these inequities in the federal regulatory process.

“All of the major political parties are blindly following the COAG and electricity privatisation process without providing the consumers with the protections needed,” Mr Ingram concluded.