Member for Northern Victoria Region, Candy Broad has called on the Baillieu-Ryan Government to support rural Victorians and protect them from electricity price hikes they simply cannot afford.
Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Ms Broad said that the Deputy Premier and the Minister for Bushfire Response, Peter Ryan should take action now to ensure that families and businesses in rural and regional Victoria are protected from electricity price hikes caused by his Government's decision to make rural Victorians bear all of the costs of implementing the recommendations of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission to reduce the risk of powerline fires.
Ms Broad said that according to a report by Peter Hunt in the Weekly Times, Victoria's regional electricity distributors, Powercor and SP AusNet, have told energy regulators they want to collect more than $200 million from regional customers in the next four years to meet the cost of implementing 2 of the Royal Commission's 67 recommendations.
Ms Broad said that according to the Weekly Times, electricity customers in metropolitan Melbourne will contribute none of the cost of implementing these two recommendations.
“In the same article the President of the Victorian Farmers Federation, asked the question 'Is that fair?'. The Deputy Premier should be asking himself the same question,” Ms Broad said.
“According to the Weekly Times report, Powercor has already lodged an application with the Australian Energy Regulator to collect $103 million from its customers to meet the cost of these recommendations. The cost is expected to be even higher for SP AusNet customers.”
Ms Broad says that the report also says that the Australian Energy Regulator has adopted a policy of assessing and allowing electricity distributors to pass on the cost of implementing the Royal Commission's recommendations, meaning to rural customers.
“The report says that the Baillieu-Ryan Government has failed to make any submission to the Australian Energy Regulator on Powercor's application,” she said.