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Ref:3/2002
24
January, 2002
Parties
must Produce Power Price Cap for Poor People
Adelaide
Central Mission service delivery experience supports concerns raised
by SACOSS about the difficulties that electricity price rises would
create for low-income households.
Over
40% of the people who sought financial counselling services from
Adelaide Central Mission over the past 12 months report difficulty
in meeting existing electricity charges. For the Mission, which
is only one of the agencies providing financial counselling, this
is about 800 families. Further
increases in power costs will mean that more families are unable
to pay their bills.
Rev
Dr Geoff Scott, Minister of the Mission said, “the consequences
of loss of electricity supply is significant. Low
income households who cannot afford electricity are at greater
health risk where they cannot use heating and cooling, while parents
of young children are unable to easily bath their children and
washing clothes.”
“A
vast majority of low income people coming to the Mission with financial
issues endeavour to pay all their bills, despite meagre incomes,
leaving any remaining money to buy food and clothes. Rises
in power bills that art greater than increases in income will simply
mean that more people are hungry; this is unreasonable” Rev Scott
said.
Adelaide
Central Mission is also concerned about recent developments to
charge high fees for late payment and re-connection and to pass
unpaid bills to collection agencies prematurely. These
approaches add to the stress of low-income households.
Adelaide
Central Mission calls on all parties to commit to strategies to
assist low-income people to cope with future electricity charges,
specifically we seek commitments to:
1. Reduce
uncertainty for low-income households by committing to regulate
domestic electricity charges to increase at no more than the
CPI rate, annually.
2. Establish
a strategy that will foster ecologically sound housing and subsidise
the use of energy efficient technology for low income households
3. Establish
a strategy to help domestic consumers to be efficient in power
use.
| For Further Comment | |||
| Mark
Henley Senior Policy Officer |
8202
5135 (w) 0404 067 011 (mob) |
||
