Cold Snap Fuels Rising Energy Prices Adding To Cost-Of Living Woes

Manufacturers and consumer groups are calling on the Albanese government to intervene as rising energy prices compound Australia's cost-of-living crisis.

A cold snap along the nation's east coast this week, saw a spike in wholesale gas prices 50 times higher than normal driving the decision to impose a price limit.

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"The energy market operator has already imposed a cap … that’s an important step, there is the so-called trigger, which is about domestic supply, we need to recognise that even that potential policy trigger has its own challenges and is not necessarily immediate our most important responsibility is to try and inject the sense of certainty," Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

Speaking on Radio National, the Treasurer said on Thursday morning, that there is no use beating around the bush - the government is dealing with a serious set of economic circumstances.

"We’ve been upfront with people before and after the election that there’s a cost-of-living crisis in this country and the most pressing element of that now is these challenges in the energy market … putting extreme pressure on industry but also on households right around Australia"

"We’ve ... said these are some of the challenges we’ve inherited," Chalmers reinstates.

Chalmers said Australians “shouldn’t pretend” there is a quick fix to the energy crisis, instead he said decent energy policy and expanding renewables, would be the long-term solution.

"I’m not going to be the kind of treasurer who says to Australian people ... that everything’s fine in the economy when it’s not. I want to be upfront, honest ... we’ve got a serious set of economic conditions that we’ve inherited from our predecessors which we have to acknowledge," he told ABC Breakfast.

"If we’re to deal with these challenges, we have to acknowledge them."

- MP Chalmers

Andrew Richards, chief executive of the Energy Users Association of Australia, warns the Albanese government must consider measures like price controls and curbs on gas exports to reserve supply for Australian users.

“It is pretty rough on the incoming federal government, most of which was sworn in yesterday, but we are facing probably the biggest energy crisis in 50 years,” Richards told the Australian.

“I think [these measures] need to be on the table.”

- Andrew Richards

But with coal, gas and oil prices soaring across the globe due to sanctions on Russian exports due to its invasion of Ukraine, concerns the problems will hit consumers sooner than later seem somewhat inevitable.

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