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.