Tasmanian Greens - Media Release - GREENS FORCE ADMISSION THAT HYDRO IS INVESTIGATING BASSLINK PURCHASE

GREENS FORCE ADMISSION THAT HYDRO IS INVESTIGATING BASSLINK PURCHASE

The Tasmanian Greens today secured a major admission that Hydro Tasmania were in the process of investigating the purchase of the Basslink cable, during Government Business Enterprise Committee Hearings, now that National Grid has put it on the market.
Greens Shadow Energy spokesperson Kim MHA, who put the question this morning to the Energy Minister and the Hydro Chairman, said that they had admitted they were in the process of assessing the Basslink bid, that the Hydro have hired independent consultant to evaluate their options, but then refused to go into further detail on the grounds that this is a ‘commercially sensitive’ matter.
Mr Booth also said that the Minister refused to ‘confirm or deny’ that in order to pay for a possible Basslink purchase that domestic and small business power prices would rise by anywhere between 5 and 10 per cent.
“In response to the Greens questioning this morning, we have now had it confirmed that Hydro Tasmania is currently investigating the purchase of Basslink from National Grid, and in fact Hydro have a number of options from their independent consultants before the Board,” Mr Booth said.
“It was very telling that during our attempts to obtain further detail about this potential purchase, the Minister hid behind the phrase of refusing ‘to confirm or deny’.”
“The Minister refused to detail how the government or the Hydro intends to find the money with which to buy Basslink, but then refused to confirm or rule out the Greens’ proposition that the potential purchase could result in domestic and small businesses being hit with power hikes of between five to ten per cent.”
“Alarmingly Minister Llewellyn also refused to rule out applying to convert the cable from an entrepreneurial link to a regulated link, which would allow Hydro to directly charge electricity consumers for the costs of the Basslink blowout.”
“That means the Mum and Dad consumer will directly pay and will continue to pay through the nose for this inept decision.”
“The Basslink burden will allow Hydro to gouge the wallets of the unsuspecting mum and dad as their electricity meters rattle off the wall in winter.”
“Hydro’s own submissions to the original project say it all, yet the Bacon government went ahead in 2002 with a project that had no chance of a commercial return as the truth would have revealed $150 million of unrecoverable hedges and derivates taken out before the project was even approved,” Mr Booth said.