Man, this guy is bloody crooked, via The Australian:
“My message to the retailers is unless they get prices down and they pick up their act, you will see more intervention because that is what the public will demand of their political leaders,” Mr Frydenberg told ABC Radio National.
…Mr Frydenberg also lashed AGL specifically, which owns the Liddell coal-fired power station in NSW, after reports in The Daily Telegraph today that it is moving to import gas into Australia in 2020 just as international prices are predicted to rise again.
The company signed a major export deal more than two years ago which has pushed domestic gas prices higher.
“What AGL did was a very, very poor decision,” Mr Frydenberg told Sky News. “They have a lot of explaining to do to their customers because their customers are paying more for their gas than they should have been had AGL decided not to export that amount of gas.”
WTF. AGL sold the gas to the export cartel because it was paying much more for it than the local market thanks to said cartel’s reserves shortage (or, put another way, over-building of LNG capacity).
AGL is not to blame for this. It is simply acting in its commercial best interests.
It’s Josh Frydenberg that is to blame for not putting in a sufficiently early or strong enough domestic reservation policy for gas. He clearly knows that is what is needed but would rather make lame political hay.
