In what was very much a blink and you missed it moment the conservative Liberal-National government called in the major power retailers for an “eyeballing” on consumer pricing that ended up being anything but.
Led by Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and the Environment Minister, Josh Frydenberg, the meeting achieved little in real results and rather embarrassingly ended with the retailers calling on the government to implement a Clean Energy Target (CET), something it has strenuously avoided.
The senior energy executives took the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting with Mr Turnbull, that also included Treasurer Scott Morrison, to argue policy certainty is required to help lower power prices for consumers, and to signal they were not interested in prolonging the life of coal-fire electricity plants.
With the government under acute political pressure over rising household power bills, Mr Turnbull secured new undertakings from major energy retailers to be more transparent with their customers.
Agreements reached today included a change to the national energy market rules requiring companies to inform customers when their discounted power deal ends, and to set out the dollar impact of doing nothing.
The retailers agreed that they would contact all their customers on expired discount deals and offer them information about more favourable plans, and also develop simple fact sheets setting out “understandable” comparison rates.
The changes should help consumers shop around for better deals.
However, the companies also took the opportunity of their summons to Canberra to urge the government to deliver policy certainty by responding fully to the recent review of the national electricity market by Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel.
The transparency agreements will do little to help the millions of consumers who are pressuring government MPs over soaring power bills.
However, internal divisions have prevented Mr Turnbull’s government from resolving whether it wants to adopt Dr Finkel’s recommendation of a new CET.
Instead the government has engaged in harsh criticism of renewable energy and tried to foster enthusiasm for new coal-fired power plants.
The message the power company executives delivered to the top echelons of the government was the country needed policy action that would lower or stabilise wholesale electricity prices, not just a focus on retail prices.
Executives told Mr Turnbull, Mr Frydenberg, Mr Morrison, and the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, that they were interested in running businesses that were intent on reducing their climate risk.
“Complexity and inertia are the big energy company’s friend,” Mr Morrison told reporters after the meeting.
“We’re ensuring that there is less complexity, and working on this inertia issue,” he said.
“What we want to put in place is the ability of consumers to have an informed choice,” Mr Turnbull said.
“Many households and consumers are paying hundreds of dollars more, right now, than they need to.”
After the meeting, Origin Energy chief executive Frank Calabria said his company was happy to sign up to the LNP government’s initiative, but he also highlighted policy uncertainty from the government over the CET.
Australian Energy Council chief executive Matthew Warren said the longer politicians took to “deliver certainty and investment, the worse the situation will be” and backed the creation of a target.
ACCC regulator Rod Sims told ABC News the measures announced by the LNP government could deliver “some short-run gains” for consumers but that other factors, such as deregulation, ownership concentration and under-supply were also to blame.
