The Andrews Labor Government’s ill-conceived plan to bring back the State Electricity Commission continues to unravel with the news a key adviser has quit, as the organisation’s interim CEO confirms power prices will rise substantially under the SEC.
“The SEC’s own interim CEO said yesterday that energy prices will rise, yet Daniel Andrews and Labor are unashamedly sticking to the bald-faced lie that the SEC will drive prices down,” The Nationals Member for Morwell, Martin Cameron said.
“Another expert said nobody who understands power generation would promise that a reinstated SEC would reduce power prices unless they were attempting to grab votes.
“What Victorians have is a Premier who is so arrogant and so self-serving that he doesn’t even listen to his own experts, and they are now abandoning the SEC because they know it is nothing but a con.”
Mr Cameron said Labor had failed to sell its case for bringing back the SEC at every turn, and recent Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearings and the 2023-24 Budget exposed yet more holes in its shambolic plan.
“Before Labor handed down its Budget, the pie-in-the-sky idea to revive the SEC was bereft of detail. Now, more than a month after the Budget was delivered, we are still none the wiser,” he said.
“All Victorians have been given is a vague $1 billion pledge, with no independent costings, that experts say is woefully inadequate – the transition to renewables will come at an estimated cost of $320 billion.
“The SEC will not bring power prices down, it will not deliver 59,000 jobs, and it absolutely will not deliver enough renewable energy to meet demand in time for Labor’s accelerated planned closure of coal-fired power stations.
“Here in the Latrobe Valley, where we have powered the state for more than a century, the people didn’t vote for this. They see this for what it is: a political stunt that ignores commercial realities and will only increase power bills and taxes for Victorians.”
