NSW households are set to be slugged with an increase of up to $225 a year on their gas bills as of July 1. Australia is rich in gas. The reason is that gas is being exported, so it means a "shortage" of east coast supplies.
Australia will triple its gas production in the next few years as key gas projects in Queensland ramp up production. Despite production going up, domestic prices are set to increase as well. The Consumer Utility Advocacy Centre's Martin Jones says it is part of the globalisation of the economy.
Electricity bills have more than The people working here say when gas goes up too, it will hurt. In Victoria we use a lot of gas, and a lot of people use it and it does get cold. And then to a lesser extent NSW and Queensland, they use less gas and there's less people that do use it. So, “comsumers need to be more efficient”!
Prices for households increased on average by 72% for electricity and 54% for gas in the 10 years to June 2013.
Global gas revolution
The shows how a rising export industry on the east coast plus ongoing strong exports from Western Australia put Australia at the forefront of the global gas revolution.
Strong Asian demand and high prices are inducing Australian producers to export their gas. That means local consumers will have to pay higher prices. Within the next couple of years, gas prices for households on the east coast, particularly in Victoria, will rise by as much as $170 a year. Large industrial users of gas will come under pressure from equally significant price increases.
Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) chairman Dr Peter Boxall says the increases are largely due to rising wholesale gas prices. "The ability to export liquid natural gas is driving a structural change in eastern Australia's wholesale gas market, and increasingly domestic gas prices will be influenced by what is happening in world gas markets," he says.
The decision comes off the back of a recent move by the NSW government to deregulate electricity prices.
;Globalisation and the loss of control of prices">Lock the Gate’s national coordinator Phil Laird said IPART’s report confirmed international markets will influence gas prices, rather than supply availability. Mr Laird said expanding CSG operations would not bring prices down. He continued, "The fact is that opening up NSW for CSG drilling will not only lead to massive price hikes in domestic gas but will also harm our best food-producing land and precious water supplies".
With global gas resources likely to last at least 200 years, the International Energy Agency has described the next decade as the ‘golden age of gas’. (not for consumers though- Grattan institute report)
Domestic manufacturers will have to pay more and will become less competitive. Domestic industries will close or downsize due to rising gas prices, and will lose workers. Australian consumers will have less disposable income, and that in turn will lower consumer rates.
The gas exporters are overwhelmingly foreign-owned. They demand local industries compete with Asian customers for Australian gas - our own resource! Electricity, water, and gas costs are all increasing despite government promises we'll all be better off.
for mining said: "The foreign multinationals causing the problem by hoovering up domestic gas for export at record prices are now saying that the solution to household price rises is to mine and frack even more gas, risking even more farmland and water”.
The Greens should be leading the charge to force Governments to support the development of a new type of sustainable economy including development of sustainable energy export industry, and lobbying for the trimming down our massive population growth to match.
Norway - an example
Indebted European nations, and Australia, should look to mainly by refusing to spend its huge oil revenues and placing them instead in a sovereign wealth fund. The fund generates money from its ownership of petroleum fields, taxes on oil and gas, and dividends from a 67% stake in Statoil, the country's largest energy company. Norway is the world's second-largest gas exporter and the seventh-largest oil exporter.
Norway has a Current Account Balance that is a world-leader in large part because it still has part ownership (67%) of its petroleum processing industry (Statoil). In contrast, Australia surrenders its resources to mainly foreign entities in exchange for exploration rights plus royalties based on tonnage exported.
Both sides of politics are at the beck and call of the monolithic international mining corporations. Globalisation means that our resources, our land, our sovereignty, our future are all being sold off to the highest bidder. Manufacturing will have to pay more and will become less competitive.
The Electrical Trades Union is calling for an independent review of the entire National Electricity Market (NEM) following the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) unprecedented decision to take over national energy supplies. AEMO has announced it will set administered prices for wholesale power in all regions of the market and take control of all generation plants to ensure the lights don’t go out for businesses and households.
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