A clean energy target doesn’t do much for pensioners

If you’re anything like the rest of Australia, you must have noticed the constant increase in your power bills.

What you may not have noticed is that the energy supplement for pensioners has not followed suit, despite energy prices steadily climbing in the past decade. 

The recently released Finkel report called on the Federal Government to adopt a clean energy target, which in turn would reduce energy prices across the board. 

Rosemary Sinclair, the CEO of Energy Consumers Australia, told The Australian that the emphasis for savings should be placed on consumers, particularly low-income households that struggled to pay power bills due to rising electricity costs. 

Read more: Energy companies ‘robbing Aussies blind’

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg told ABC’S Q&A on Monday night that retailers could do better at moving some of their “vulnerable” customers to lower power supply offers. But he wouldn’t throw his weight behind one of the measures in the report, which called for subsidised rooftop solar power and battery storage for low-income households. 

“I support helping low-income households in any which way we can but as for the specific recommendations, that is something we have to take to the cabinet room,” he said.

Former Liberal leader Tony Abbott has publicly stated that he’s sceptical about the recommendation. 

He told talk radio station 2GB:”Now we all know that there is no such thing as a magic pudding, and if you are rewarding one type of energy, inevitably that money’s got to come from somewhere, either from consumers or taxpayers, and if it’s from consumers, well it’s effectively a tax on coal, and that’s the last thing we want.”

That implied that other sources of power supply  – such as coal, where Australia sources 63 percent of its energy – could become more expensive rather than cheaper.

But Frydenberg has said that the clean energy target was not a tax on coal and that he had spoken with a broad range of Coalition MPs, including the former prime minister, since Finkel’s report was released on Friday.

“I have spoken to [Abbott] and it was very constructive conversation,” he said on Q&A.

Meanwhile, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is still accepting submissions until the end of June on many of the issues tackled in the report, including the prices, costs and profits that contribute to electricity bills, and how providers can work better with customers.