Already a subscriber?Political relief for Chris Bowen more than matches power bill relief for Australian households and small businesses.in most people’s energy prices from July 1, albeit a modest one, rather than commiserate after the last two years of surging costs.
Now a fall in wholesale prices for electricity has provided the Australian Energy Regulator with some room to finally move gently down rather than straight up. In a separate process, the Victorian regulator promptly followed with a somewhat bigger average draft reduction of 6.4 per cent for Victoria’s households and 7.3 per cent for its small businesses.
But she acknowledged the stabilisation in wholesale markets was countered by the increase in the network costs – the poles and wires – that account for around 40 per cent of retail bills. Those network costs are likely to only keep increasing. Most consumers will probably consider any improvement in their power costs to be far more marginal given the increase of over 40 per cent on average since 2022 – fomenting their aggravation about the cost of living generally.
Holding her new regular press conference after the board decision, governor Michele Bullock also welcomed the change in energy prices, pointing to the influence that pressures like higher energy prices had had on inflation in the last few years.