A crisis meeting of state and federal energy ministers this week will consider a financial aid package for business and manufacturers to help ease the cost of soaring energy bills sending some businesses broke.
Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said she was aware of the challenges for business and manufacturers and would push for some form of aid package to complement household support from Friday’s crisis meeting.“We know that rising energy costs are having an impact and we need to, of course, ensure we can get through what is a very, very difficult position right now, where because of global circumstances we are seeing gas prices going through the roof,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.
“We are absolutely sympathetic to the impacts on businesses. With the energy ministers meeting, one of the things that certainly I’ll be putting on the agenda is what are we going to do to support our business community, our manufacturers, because we are certainly investing significantly in helping households”.on Monday to pay energy providers to keep capacity on standby in case a power shortfall looms.
Managing director John Collins said the business went from paying $6-to-$8 a gigajoule of gas to more than $37 a gigajoule after the collapse of commercial gas supplier Weston Energy forced it onto a plan with “retailer of last resort” Energy Australia. “The assertion by [Victorian Premier Daniel] Andrews and [Federal Energy Minister] Chris Bowen that heavy industries can transition to renewable energy is complete and utter fantasy,” Mr Collins said.