Grattan: Blame gold-plating for raising Australia’s electricity costs

Monday 26 March 2018

Back in July, The Australia Institute (TAI) released a report, which found that electricity prices have increased at three times the rate of CPI, primarily due to companies ‘gold-plating’ financial assets and passing those costs onto consumers.

Then in October, chair of the Australian Electricity Regulator, Paula Conboy, added weight to the TAI’s analysis, claiming that ‘gold-plating’ investments in distribution networks have been the biggest cause of electricity price rises over the past decade.

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:

$24.99 / month

$249 / year

Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe

About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.