The South Australian Council of Social Service has welcomed the latest round of energy policy announcements today, and says that consumers could end up being the real winners in a state election focused on energy.
Nick Xenophon today launched the SA Best Energy Policy - which includes a community-owned electricity retailer as well as a move to review the energy concession - while the Labor Party announced interest-free loans for household solar energy.
Responding to SA Best’s policy, SACOSS CEO Ross Womersley said,”We congratulate SA Best for its recognising the need to modernise the current energy concession for low income households. Today’s announcement is in-line with a policy SACOSS has been advocating for some time, which is to change the concession from a flat-rate to one based on a percentage of the bill.”
“The energy concession is a vital support for the poorest households across SA, and a percentage-based concession offers better-targeted relief to those households that are most vulnerable, often with large families, who have the largest bills.
“We also welcome SA Best’s concern with the market dominance of a few key companies, and we look forward to seeing more modelling on how the proposed new retailer would work and impact on the market.
“We applaud the community focus of the initiative with the retailer to be co-operatively owned, and we also welcome the targeting of households and small businesses who are really struggling with energy affordability, but who may not get the energy concession.
“But we recognise too that other consumers are also struggling. In this context we also welcome the SA Best proposal for a $1 million renter’s energy efficiency pilot program. We will be strongly encouraging SA Best to take-up and pilot SACOSS proposals around both a land tax concession for landlords and implementation of a residential energy efficiency disclosure scheme in such a program.
SACOSS similarly welcomed the government’s announcement today of interest free loans for household solar installation. While this is not targeted to low income households, it complements their recent announcement of the virtual power plant which will initially be targeted to Housing Trust properties.
Ross Womersley said, “Today’s government announcement of interest-free loans for household solar power is also welcome, and clearly echoes the Liberal policy announced last year of a home storage subsidy.”
“Overall, it is good to see that all parties have focussed their minds on addressing energy affordability. As this election bidding war continues, the real winners may finally be energy consumers.”