The PIAA demanded that federal MPs work to fix the nation’s emerging energy crisis, telling the politicians that volatility in costs and supply were unacceptable, and that the renewables target is ‘crazy’ and will lead to more energy blackouts.
CEO Andrew Macaulay and director of government relations Mary-Jo Fisher sat down with 25 politicians from both Labor and Liberal parties to express the industry’s growing concerns with energy pricing, security and supply.
Fisher says, “We went to Canberra armed with empirical information we got from SA members about the cost of energy from them and the instability of supply. Members of parliament were thirsty for that information. We are now compiling information from our members nationally to take back to parliament.”
Fisher says they spoke to South Australian members first as the state has experienced three blackouts in the past six months. She says one member had electricity prices rise by 35 per cent in the past year and another had prices rise by 48 per cent in the same period.
“We asked those members what are their costs, what are the impacts of the cost, the impacts on employment, jobs and insecurity of supply. The printers are worried as they do not know when the next blackout is going to be. This crazy renewable target set by the government will soon be replicated in other states and they too will follow into the darkness.”
[Related: PIAA confront MPs]
Fisher says the problem with renewable energy is a lack of efficiency and not enough base power.
“In increasing your reliability on renewable energy, you are increasing your reliability on something which is not reliable,” she says.
Macaulay has previous stated the need for energy security in Australia, especially for printers because without it there is nothing but negative impacts for employment and productivity.
We surveyed issues for energy problems with one of the examples being productivity costs. These energy problems are occurring in SA, NSW, VIC and WA. We are sourcing out this energy issue in Australia, it is very important,” he says.
Some of those politicians the PIAA spoke to were Senator David Leyonhjelm, Tony Abbott, Bob Katter and Sussan Ley.
Both Macaulay and Fisher will return to Canberra in March to confront politicians once again.
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