In today's Daily Telegraph (9-8-17), David Leyonhjelm argued for a drop in the electricity price by the Federal Government removing the GST.

He pointed out that that other essential service, water, does not attract GST and neither should electricity as it is an equally essential service.

Thoughts?

Water is being sold as a commodity, not as an essential service and for community benefit as it was before. Extra taxes are being tacked onto water charges. That always gives room to crank up charges.

However, there is demand for extra services too. So, what is local and State government to do?

The GST will be applied to water.

For decades, State and local governments, Labor too, have criticised federal governments for continually ramping up the record immigration numbers that:

- put so much pressure on infrastructure (and coincidentally are also causing rushed development, poor planning and high property prices); and,

- require a higher tax load for the necessary big spending for a 'Big Australia'.

The feds are determined to protect the sacred cows of a 'Big Australia' and high immigration. Fortunately however, after Howard there are more skilled migrants being brought in, although it is sometimes questionable whether the $$ should be put instead into developing our own students and workers. Chicken and egg.

One could live without electricity, but no one can live for more than a few days without water.

Queensland Urban Utilities justified higher prices for water by arguing against 'wanton' misuse, such as 'long' showers, washing cars and watering gardens.

The public diligently wound back on the use of water and put money into water tanks & pumps, dual flush toilets , low water use clothes washing machines (that default to heating, more energy, to achieve clean clothes through water efficiency) and by letting the garden die off. Water is 'critical', said Urban Utilities, who were monitoring water use and threatening to cut off supply of 'non-compliant' users. Many got threatening letters.

Then there was the complaint that the income generated from water had 'not increased as expected' ie reduced (along with lower water use). So water charges would have to be increased to make up for the 'shortfall'.

From government too, 'We are no so sure about those water tanks anymore'.

And from business and local government, demands that householders make cities beautiful with better gardens. But once the tradition of gardening has been trashed, it will not reestablish so easily if at all. Garden supplies business have closed. Few people are willing to do the 'nice garden' thing anymore and have lost all inclination. A pity, because pottering about in the garden improved health.

Labor and Greens are waiting to introduce a host of new taxes, such as to reintroduce Death Tax and to slam homeowners with a capital gains tax on the family/residential home. That after encouraging banks to make bigger profits from home loans under the guise of reducing investor 'advantage'.

Will government drop the GST on electricity? Answer, career politicians are likely to do anything but reduce taxes overall. Expect more. Especially if 'Shifty' Shorten gets into the big seat in Canberra.

Yes, GST could be removed from electricity, but isn't that just helping the foreign power companies to continue their gouging? It's not the GST that is the problem, it is the greed of power companies and the refusal of the 'regulator' to stop them charging too much. All this bulldust about 'discounts' and 'plans' has to stop. Prices are simply too high because of greed and stupid RET nonsense.

Coal mines gave Australia the cheapest electricity in the world. Gw charlatans and so called renewables are to thank for much higher prices.

Never mind tinkering around the edges by talking about GST and discounts. The fault lies directly with govt and their mates. I can recall when the energy industry was put up for sale. The market, (or those aspiring to buy it), threw the offer back in the govts face saying it was not profitable enough. They arrogantly stated that they would be interested if it showed a profit. The govt duly complied and if you care to remember, a few years ago the price of electricity, for example, began rising and we started hearing about how the price of energy in this country was the lowest in the developed world, or some such crap. Shortly after it was sold and we have seen more disruptions in power supply since, that we have ever seen before. That famous debacle in South Australia recently had nothing to do with felled power lines and everything to do with the electricity providers refusing to supply power because they could not get the price they were demanding, by holding govts to ransom,pay this much or we won't switch on supply. And so SA went off the grid. Essential services should always be the domain of govt and not private enterprise. The simple facts are that the respective ministers should be jailed for selling off these major infrastructures, and we should be looking at re-acquiring them back into govt control, then and only then can we reduce the costs of these essential services.

'Essential services should always be the domain of govt and not private enterprise'.....
and that's all down to the politicians and their advisers....which is the end result of voters voting along party lines, instead of voting for people truly representing their constituents.

Dear ALTRAV,

«Essential services should always be the domain of govt and not private enterprise.»

Essential services should indeed be in the public domain.
However, "public" need not imply government.

There could well be some other public body(s) that is responsible for essential services, but separate from the violent body that makes laws and throws those who do not obey them to jail. Such body should be voluntary and controlled by separately-elected representatives.

While it's disheartening how electricity prices have continuously increased over the years. I say that it's important to see all sides of the parties involved namely; consumers, providers, and the government.

Consumers want lower prices and more stable energy supply. Achieving one of these two significantly affects the other. Case in point, to be able to have a more stable energy supply, providers would need to put more effort in installing better technology, improving transmission lines, and generating more energy -all of which involve using more of providers' resources and funds. It's simple analogy to understand that a better service is correlated with a higher price.

Meanwhile, recent reports explain that the cheap coal that has been used over the years to provide energy has ran out of supply. This means that providers would need more effort to extract the elements from the ground. This phenomenon influences the price changes.

Lastly, it is important to note that since the government has lessened its intervention in keeping electricity prices lower (like providing rebates for consumers who generate solar energy for their own consumption), the electricity bill of some households had increased.

With this, the obvious conclusion is we're not going back to prices that we used to have 5 to 10 years ago any time soon. It's important to understand that this is where we are and we have no choice but to move forward as best as we can.

The reason for high prices is the way wholesale energy is traded. Were the smallest supply unit for the supply of energy over a 24 hour period, there would be no price problem, and certainly no problem in getting as many state of the art coal fired power stations built as needed. The current debacle is purely a political problem, and nothing will improve until the pollies accept this fact. Blaming AGL? Like pissing on a lamp post and then blaming the lamp post for the splatter on your shoes.