The recent report from the ACCC pointed to a 63% increase in the cost of electricity over the last 10 years. Mr Sims said the ACCC Report showed that the biggest factor behind the increase were network costs.

I point to the government’s (both state and federal) sale of all levels of the electricity industry (generators, grid and retail networks). This is the government’s fault and it needs to fix its mess. We have seen that privatisation only increases costs to consumers.

As we have learned this century: is that energy production needs to be regionalised and produced at/near where it is consumed. It is not a difficult conclusion that the national and centralised grid in its current form will not exist in the 21st century. So, selling the grid to private enterprise (with presumably some profit guarantee) is NOT in the interest of the public.

As seen in the more enlightened parts of the world, the large national grid is being replaced with smaller and more regional grids. Power is becoming democratised in most places except here, where the government has handed to foreign controlled corporations a mandate to make profits at the expense of normal Australians.

This has got to stop.

Malcolm Turnbull’s government’s suggestion that people turn off their A/C and reduce power is laughable. The poor, who can now ill afford the power price structure will be forced to endure the heat and discomfort of the coming summer. Of more importance older less well-off Australians will be forced to reduce electricity consumption because they cannot afford it. In many cases older Australians will die.

The selloff of the energy industry was WRONG. Just man up and admit it and fix it. Over 1 year after the crisis in South Australia, no government (aside from the South Australian) have done anything. Not a brick has been laid, not a tunnel has been built, nothing. 12 months down the track and there is NOTHING.

As I understand the coal and fossil fuel industry receives subsidiaries (in various forms, direct and indirect), so clean energy and renewables need subsidies. We need to hand over to our children a better world. Your governments in my life time have made the economy and the environment for average Australians worse.

I remain with my offer of a solution, and yes, it is not friendly to the coal lobby or Mr Joyce or the energy companies:

I remain astonished that “politicians” do just not get it…. all I can assume is that there are under the table deals that are designed to centralise energy market in the hands of fewer and fewer hands, allow these corporations to profit from what is an “essential” product. As we know, energy is a Giffen good – I suggest you google it.