Essay by Eric Worrall
“… The gasoline trade remains to be behaving like a bunch of bullies and successfully wanting like they’re withholding provide, …”
Fuel value caps haven’t been silver bullet the Albanese authorities hoped for
Trade behaving like a ‘bunch of bullies’ and probably withholding provide, customers say, whereas producers argue intervention has ‘paralysed the market’
Peter Hannam Tue 17 Jan 2023 01.00 AEDT
Strains within the gasoline market haven’t been eased by the Albanese authorities’s value caps imposed late final yr, with an trade group claiming provide shortages stay whereas the height gasoline foyer is warning the sector has develop into “nearly paralysed”.
One month on from the federal government’s uncommon intervention to restrict home gasoline costs to $12 a gigajoule and black coal to $125 a tonne, massive business gasoline customers are hoping new compliance tips to be launched quickly by the Australian Competitors and Client Fee will drive suppliers to offer an enough provide.
“The gasoline trade remains to be behaving like a bunch of bullies and successfully wanting like they’re withholding provide,” stated Andrew Richards, CEO of the Power Customers Affiliation of Australia (EUAA). “You’d solely withhold provide in the event you had market energy.”
…
Samantha McCulloch, the chief government of the Australian Petroleum Manufacturing & Exploration Affiliation (Appea), stated the federal government’s intervention had resulted in “a chilling of the market” at a time when the sector wanted extra funding to spice up provide.
“The gasoline trade has sought clarification of various sensible questions and points relating to the implementation of the worth cap and we’re nonetheless ready for steerage from the regulator,” McCulloch stated. “The dearth of readability on how the worth cap order is to be utilized alongside the specter of everlasting gasoline value regulation has nearly paralysed the market.”
…
WUWT foresaw value caps would result in an availability disaster again in June, when the the Aussie authorities began capping power costs and expropriating power corporations.
You would need to be a socialist to imagine there could possibly be every other potential end result.
The one query is, since power value caps are failing to ship the politically desired end result, what’s the authorities’s subsequent transfer?
My guess is power firm nationalisation. Some main power belongings are already authorities owned, and the Victorian Dan Andrews authorities lately made strikes within the course of power asset nationalisation. For my part, it’s only a matter of time till the left wing radicals who run the Aussie Federal Authorities try to totally nationalise the Aussie power trade.
Given the Aussie authorities’s observe file of expropriation and trampling of property rights through the imposition of power value caps, I’m guessing the present house owners of Aussie power belongings can be lower than happy with any compensation provided, if their plant and gear is nationalised.
