Gillard's Orwellian Hypocrisy on the Electricity Prices

02/02/11

Julia Gillard’s speech today demanding a carbon price was a rolled gold example of Orwellian hypocrisy and double speak from the woman who convinced Kevin Rudd to dump his ETS.

The hypocrisy is that she was the person who told her old boss to shelve his carbon price.

And Ms Gillard was the one who proclaimed on election eve there would be no carbon tax under a government she led.

The double speak is that the Prime Minister is simply afraid to level with the Australian public that her approach would bring a 25% increase in electricity prices on top of all other price rises to date within the first three years and a doubling beyond that.

Put simply, Julia Gillard was arguing for a tax on electricity.

Given that there has been up to a 60% plus increase in electricity prices without some mythical transformation of either demand or supply, the Prime Minister must explain why an additional 25% increase would make the change. 

Is she saying that there would be a sudden drop in demand from overwhelmed pensioners and families or is she saying that there would be a switch to vastly more expensive energy sources?

Australian householders are already feeling the pain of higher power prices.

Julia Gillard’s speech today was simply a promise to whack them even higher.

Ultimately, there is a vastly simpler way to reduce emissions.  Rather than a massive $11 billion tax on electricity, it is vastly easier to do as we do with water and introduce a simpler system of carbon buy-backs, which finds the lowest cost abatement without driving up electricity prices for the whole economy to no effect.

And, as for reform on a grand scale, the last time Labor tried that, it was called the Home Insulation Program.