NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has intervened to force radical energy policy into law – against the wishes of voters and the advice of experts. 

Her demands to rush through NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean’s 100 per cent renewables “roadmap” – without first releasing cost modelling – succeeded last night with the backing of Labor and The Greens. 

More than 250 cross-bench amendments to the controversial bill were rejected. 

REJECTED

Mr Kean’s energy plan has been criticised by Federal colleagues, industry experts and NSW’s own Parliamentary Development Committee.

The rushed legislation comes at a time when voters have overwhelming rejected climate change as a legitimate community concern.

Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor has fired a broadside at Mr Kean saying his go-it-alone $32b renewables “roadmap” threatened to increase power prices.

Of particular concern, he said, was NSW’s failure to place a cap on costs that could be passed on to consumers.

Mr Taylor attempted to obtain copies of Mr Kean’s cost modelling, however, these requests were ignored.

According to reports in The Sydney Morning Herald, Mrs Berejiklian demanded the renewables bill be passed before Christmas triggering a 30-hour plus marathon sitting of parliament.

Almost 250 amendments were proposed by One Nation’s Mark Latham who claimed the government’s bill as it stands could increase power prices by up to $400 a year.

THWARTED

Mr Latham said the bill contained a “new electricity tax” via a mandatory levy on distributors that would ultimately be recouped by billing consumers.

He said he had tried “five ways” to get hold of the modelling but each time was thwarted.

“There’s a real risk the roadmap won’t trigger the level of renewable energy investment that has been claimed because the assumptions are incredibly optimistic,” Mr Latham told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper this week.

“But it may bring forward the retirement of reliable base-load generation. So we could get the worst of both worlds,” Mr Latham said.

Mr Kean said he expected his plan would save electricity consumers up to $130 a year.

AGL CEO Brett Redman said he was concerned the NSW government was doubling up on private investment already in the system.“It’s important we let the market make those big investments and not muddy up what technology can do,” he said.

INCAPABLE

In the meantime, Mr Kean’s own parliamentary colleagues on NSW’s powerful Parliamentary Development Committee warned in September that renewable energy alone was incapable of meeting the State’s growth demands.

Committee member Natasha Maclaren-Jones said at the time that the committee had found renewables alone were neither “viable” nor “reliable”.