Hasbeen,

When it comes to rising electricity costs -

Which party classified electricity as "non-essential" and imposed a GST on it?

Which party told electricity suppliers they should not only charge consumers for the cost of upgrading their networks instead of internally funding it plus add an additional 10% on top? (This is how they planned to build up the network for future sale - make the consumer pay).

Which party has been promoting the ongoing privatisation of all electricity generation and opened up the market to phony resellers who take an extra premium on top of their costs? Gas companies selling electricity - electricity companies selling gas, paper-shuffling money-takers treating energy supply like mobile phone contracts.

Which party actively promoted the installation of roof-top solar cells only to later renege on the price paid by suppliers?

Which party has always treated important public utilities as something to be exploited for financial gain?

Which party not only strongly resisted the initial construction of the Snowy Scheme but actually boycotted it's opening - only to later claim it as a national icon?

Foxy,

What a shocker, a blog run by environmental activists containing unchecked statements and fact free assertions doesn't agree with me.

The proof of the efficacy of the maintenance is plant availability statistics, and given that the plant availability and safety record at Hazelwood met world benchmarks, I need a little more than the word of activists who have not done a single minute of plant maintenance in their lives.

SM,

Hazelwood is closing.

Despite your rhetoric.

Move on.

Foxy,

I have never claimed that Hazelwood wouldn't close, or that the federal government should try and rescue it. What I did highlight was:

The actions of the Victorian labor government that pushed it to close, The consequences on electricity prices,
The consequences on system reliability,
The left whinge lie about the maintenance of the plant.

SA has experienced the consequences of labor's ideologically based incompetence and I guess Victoria will too. There is nothing like a black out before elections.

SM,

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/coal-station-closure-inevitable-start-planning-labor-and-greens-20161128-gsz8k9.html

Looks Like JW was lying to us. For $25m he could have kept Alinta coal fired power station available, providing more back up than his $550m admission of guilt

"Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has labelled Jay Weatherill the “premier with no clothes” after it emerged the South Australian government knocked back a $25 million offer to keep the Northern coal-fired power station open.

Details of the previously secret offer from Alinta Energy to keep South Australia’s last coal-fired power station operational in return for just $25 million from the Weatherill government have today been revealed, a fortnight after the Premier flatly denied it and accused The Australian of promoting false information.

Hitting out at the SA Labor leader for preventing the release of the letter outlining the rescue bid, Mr Frydenberg said the deal would have provided more energy security than the $550m energy plan the state has since unveiled.

“Just five weeks ago announcing his $550m sorry note to the South Australian people, he (Weatherill) was asked five times whether it would be cheaper to keep open the Port Augusta coal-fired power plant, he said no. Today we find out that the answer is yes — twenty-two times cheaper than his $550m admission of failure,” Mr Frydenberg said.

“Jay Weatherill has tried to prevent the release of this letter … now the letter has come to light and it has exposed Jay Weatherill and his government for the mistakes they have made and for the trouble they have put their state in."