The privatisation of electricity assets in NSW — which the Liberals and Nationals promised would deliver lower prices for consumers — has been confirmed as an abject failure, with the national energy regulator instead finding surging prices and growing disconnections.
The Electrical Trades Union said the Australian Energy Regulator's annual report on compliance and performance of the retail energy market confirmed the anecdotal experiences of consumers following privatisation, including record prices and poorer services.
"The Liberals and Nationals promised before the last election that power privatisation would not lead to higher prices, yet the independent energy regulator has confirmed that those statements were untrue and the people of NSW are now paying record prices for their power," ETU secretary Justin Page said.
"If a company promised consumers one thing, yet delivered the total opposite, they could be prosecuted for their false and misleading conduct, yet when politicians do the same thing the only avenue available is to dump them from office at the next election."
Mr Page said the AER report revealed that in the last year, median standing offer bills in NSW increased by 21.75 per cent, 32,000 households had their power cut off because they couldn't pay their bills, and customer complaints about electricity retailers had climbed.
"Premier Gladys Berejiklian owes the people of NSW an apology," he said.
"When we warned before the last election that selling off electricity assets would lead to higher prices, the Liberals and Nationals attacked us and accused us of running a scare campaign.
"Increasingly, we are seeing independent evidence confirming that we were absolutely right and that consumers have been short-changed by an ideological privatisation push that will only continue to force up power bills.
"In the last year alone, tens of thousands of NSW families have had their power cut off because they simply can't pay the exorbitant prices.
"Small businesses are also suffering the impact of higher prices at the same time as consumer spending is shrinking due to stagnant wage growth.
"If the NSW Liberals and Nationals had any integrity at all they would publicly apologise to the people of NSW, admit the failure of their power privatisation program, and begin working to restore public ownership and control over this essential service."
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