Speaking in Parliament this week, Nationals Member for Euroa Annabelle Cleeland has criticised the Allan Labor Government’s unrelenting push to ban gas appliances and connections from Victorian households.
Ms Cleeland said regional Victoria was set to be disproportionately impacted by the shortsighted transition, leading to higher energy bills and unreliable power supply.
“We know that many of our regional communities are only fitted with gas options for heating, cooking, and their water,” Ms Cleeland said.
“Removing gas options in these houses will only put further pressure on our electricity supply that has already crumbled under the slightest bit of pressure over summer.
“I’m all for the responsible transition to renewables, but how are our already struggling communities meant to survive when there are no alternatives.”
After power outages left much of the region without electricity earlier in the year, AusNet research found that electricity only households were saddled with significantly higher costs than those who had gas connections as well.
Electricity only customers spent on average $1,100 to respond to an outage over Christmas, whereas if they had gas connections too, that amount was reduced to just $360.
Ms Cleeland said that regional communities continued to pay the biggest price for Labor’s mismanaged energy transition.
“The energy minister very proudly but very incorrectly claimed that power prices were going “down, down, down”, meanwhile between June 2022 and June 2023 electricity prices rose by 28 per cent in Victoria,” Ms Cleeland said.
“There also remains a significant disparity between the cost, reliability, and resilience of energy supply between regional and metro areas.
“The energy costs are astronomical and rising at a concerning rate, and the reality is that people are having to choose between feeding their families or powering their homes, and that is a decision nobody should have to make.”
