Catherine Tanna that is, at the AFR:
Competition czar Rod Sims has dismantled EnergyAustralia’s reasoning that the introduction of a default retail electricity tariff will mean higher prices for most of its customers, saying that the competitive market means those customers will still be able to get discounts as big as they do now by switching to a rival supplier.
EA chief executive Cath Tanna told NSW energy minister Don Harwin last week that, based on a back-of-the-envelope calculation, some 70 per cent of the retailer’s customers would end up paying more if a default tariff was introduced.
The reasoning took into account that shifting unengaged – but more profitable – customers that are on expensive standing offers to the cheaper, default tariff would reduce the retailer’s scope to offer keen discounts for the rest of the customer base.
Ms Tanna seamlessly migrated from building the white elephant Curtis Island LNG project as chair of BG Group (now Shell) to exploiting the resulting power shock at Energy Australia via a stopover in the oligarchic sinecure of the RBA board.
If anyone deserves a lecture from the ACCC on energy market destruction it is Ms Tanna.
That said, after he’s finished, Mr Sims ought turn the scorn upon himself for preventing gas reservation, the only viable solution to the total energy mess.
