Tasmanian Greens - Media Release - GREENS WARNED THAT BASSLINK WOULD RESULT IN POWER PRICE HIKE - BUT WERE IGNORED

GREENS WARNED THAT BASSLINK WOULD RESULT IN POWER PRICE HIKE - BUT WERE IGNORED

The Tasmanian Greens today said that they have been warning for years that Tasmanian power prices are likely to rise due to the impact of Basslink, a scenario recently confirmed by Hydro Tasmania and the Lennon Labor government.
Greens Shadow Energy spokesperson Kim Booth MHA said that during initial debate on Basslink Hydro’s arguments were that it would make money selling energy into the National Electricity Market (NEM), which the Greens had warned was not going to work, and that Hydro’s more recent argument that the interconnector would drought-proof Tasmania is nothing but spin.
Mr Booth also pointed out that the timing of Friday’s announcement was an obvious and deliberate attempt by the government to control the negative fall-out before Hydro Tasmania was due to be scrutinised by the Parliamentary Government Business Enterprise Committee on Tuesday.
“Basslink was supposed to be all about making money for Hydro Tasmania, but now that Hydro are losing money hand over fist due to Basslink, the damage-control spin has started that the cable somehow drought proofs Tasmania,” Mr Booth said.
“Make no mistake, Basslink will result in a significant increase in power prices in Tasmania, just as the Greens have been warning for years.”
“The simple fact is that natural gas provided complete drought-proofing for Tasmania - by converting the Bell Bay Power Station to combined-cycle the government could have drought-proofed the state for the next twenty years at least.”
“The Greens have always warned and maintained that the Basslink proposal was fundamentally flawed, and would result in the Tasmanian energy consumer having to pick up the tab in the form of power price hikes, which is effectively what Hydro and the Lennon government admitted yesterday,” Mr Booth said.
“The government is clearly in damage-mode over the fact that our power price hike prediction has been proven correct, and are now trying to spin this bad news before GBE scrutiny next week and divert criticism by blaming the current drought conditions.”