Labor needs energy policy reset as bills skyrocket

NSW Nationals

Photo: Dr David Gillespie with Laurieton United Services Club CEO Robert Dwyer

Federal Nationals Member for Lyne Dr David Gillespie said the Albanese Government needed to press the reset button on its energy policy before more damage from skyrocketing electricity prices was inflicted on households and businesses.

Dr Gillespie said Labor’s energy policy will see power prices continuing to rise, putting a further squeeze on households, businesses, and other parts of the economy.

“The massive cost of 28,000km of new poles and wires, batteries, wind turbines and other subsidies will be built into everyone’s power bills which will continue to cripple our economy through very high and unrealistic power prices, and without reliable baseload energy replacement, we will see more and more blackouts,” Dr Gillespie said.

“There is no need to build an entirely new grid. We simply need to embrace new, emissions-free small modular nuclear technology and plug it into the existing system as coal-fired power plants are retired from service.”

Dr Gillespie has made his comments while congratulating seven local businesses on securing Federal funding for energy efficiency improvements within their operations.

The firms have received grants in the first round of the Energy Efficiency Grants for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises program.

Under this program, grants can be used for a broad range of measures including installing heat pumps, lighting upgrades, space and water heating improvements and installing energy monitoring systems.

The successful grant recipients are:

Astro Services – removal of old air conditioning and replaced with new split system – $25,000

Lawnlar – refrigeration upgrade – $25,000

Reviresco Enterprises – reduction of energy consumption costs – $25,000

Bird Hill Chickens – electrification of pumping equipment – $25,000

Laurieton United Services Club – energy audit and upgrade of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning controls

H.F Hand Constructors – welding machine energy efficiency upgrade – $23,000

Lyndon Nevins – energy efficiency upgrades – $25,000

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