The Tasmanian Greens today said any failure to secure buyers for Aurora Energy would be an energy policy trainwreck caused solely by the Labor and Liberal parties, for their stubborn refusal to support the Greens proposal to reform of the wholesale market.
Greens Energy spokesperson Kim Booth MP said that Labor and Liberal steadfastly refused to discuss the Greens’ trading rooms proposal, which would have brought down power prices and increased the value of Aurora.
“The sale of Aurora was almost set up to fail by the Liberal and Labor parties, who stubbornly refused to discuss the Greens’ proposals for introducing competition into the wholesale market,” Mr Booth said.
“We said all along that failure to address wholesale competition will not only wash the value off Aurora, it will make it difficult to sell off Aurora’s customer base.”
“The Expert Energy Panel said exactly the same thing, but for some reason Labor and Liberal chose to cherry pick their report and now they must accept full responsibility for their own decisions.”
“Having blocked the wholesale reforms that the Greens proposed in the Parliament, the gutless Liberal Party are now dancing on the power bills of Tasmanians because the half-baked reforms they asked for now appear to be failing.”
“We have said it before and we will continue to say it. Unless you address wholesale competition, you’re just tinkering around the edges.”
Details of the Greens’ trading rooms proposal is here: http://mps.tas.greens.org.au/2012/08/greens-unveil-21st-century-energy-vision/
* Kim Booth MP, Second Reading Speech, Electricity Reform (Implementation) Bill, Thursday 11 April 2013:
“They [the Energy Expert Panel] have made it very clear that without wholesale competition you are going to wash value off Aurora, and that is something that concerns me. I put it on the record now that I think that the value of Aurora has been impaired massively by the decision of this parliament not to adopt wholesale competition in the market and instead go for the regulatory model. “
Kim Booth MP Greens Energy Spokesperson
