Wallsend’s Frances Burdon rarely turns on the heater in winter.
“I use a rug,” Ms Burdon said.
The rising price of electricity and gas makes it hard to balance the budget.
She did use her gas heater once this winter because it was wet and cold, but this was because she was “worried about the house because it was so damp”.
She has also cut back on cooking.
Electricity prices will rise by up to 20 per cent from July 1, costing residential consumers an extra $300 a year. Gas prices will also rise by about $50 to $80 a year.
Ms Burdon receives a federal rebate and a discount under EnergyAustralia’s hardship scheme, but she said the coming price rise will cancel this out.
Ms Burdon, 73, lives on the pension.
“You get $888.30 a fortnight,” she said.
A divorce 20 years ago set her back financially. She ended up having to use her superannuation to pay off her mortgage.
“I have eight grandchildren, I can only give them one present a year. They have to pick either birthday or Christmas,” she said.
Ms Burdon said she had “worked all my life”.
“I’ve always had a job. I was mostly in administration in hospitals. I reared three children,” she said.
A recent report by Kildonan Uniting Care found an increasing number of the “working poor” and “middle class” were struggling to pay power bills.
EnergyAustralia said it would provide an additional $10 million for “vulnerable customers” under its hardship program.
Wallsend MP Sonia Hornery said “young families, students and pensioners” were doing it tough.
“We have seen prices increase dramatically over the last few years and this latest increase may be the final straw for some,” Ms Hornery said.
Ms Hornery accused the NSW government of driving up electricity prices by selling the power generators and deregulating retail pricing, which “allowed the big power companies to gouge even larger profits from customers”.
Opposition leader Luke Foley said a Labor state government would “re-regulate the electricity market to help households and businesses struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living”.
The pricing regulator (IPART) said last September that retail price deregulation had increased competition and consumer choice. It urged people to shop around for a better deal on electricity.
A spokeswoman for NSW Energy Minister Don Harwin said “privatisation has not caused electricity price rises”.
Mr Harwin agreed with EnergyAustralia, which attributed the latest price hike to “the closure of large coal-fired power stations and increased demand for gas by LNG projects in Queensland”.
Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said: “The last time [federal] Labor were in office, electricity prices doubled”.
“When the Coalition repealed the carbon tax, it led to the largest fall in electricity prices on record.”
Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon said former prime minister Tony Abbott’s decision four years ago to axe the carbon tax had created policy uncertainty, reduced electricity supply and increased prices.
There’s concern that the price hikes, which will also affect customers of other energy retailers such as Origin and AGL, will continue if energy supply is not secured.
The Finkel review aims to secure Australia’s energy future, while reducing electricity prices and carbon emissions.
AGL chief executive Andrew Vesey said last week that “large-scale renewables [like wind, solar and battery storage], firmed up by open-cycle gas” would become “the new baseload for us”.
Shortland MP Pat Conroy, who is shadow assistant climate change minister, agrees that this is the way forward.
“Renewable energy coupled with storage or gas peaking plants is the cheapest way of getting new baseload power generation,” Mr Conroy said.
Dr Alan Finkel said it was “allowable” and “conceivable” that gas and new-technology coal generation could fit under a new energy scheme.
But he added that technological advances in renewable generation and storage were making investments in conventional energy sources less attractive.
Mr Fitzgibbon said the market had decided that no new coal-fired power plants would be built in Australia.
“You need around $2 billion and a 50-year life to secure the return you’d expect from investment in a coal-fired generator. It’s not going to happen,” he said.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance reflected this in its 2017 outlook, which said solar and wind would “dominate the future of electricity”.
Mr Fitzgibbon supports increased use of gas, which is expected to be needed as a transition fuel. The Turnbull government has moved to secure more domestic gas supplies.
However, the government is also considering using taxpayers’ money to help build new, more efficient coal-fired plants.
Mr Conroy said a new coal-fired plant would not be built in Australia “without a massive government subsidy”.
“A coal subsidy means that working families and pensioners will have to either pay more tax or higher electricity prices,” he said.
“It is much more expensive to build a new coal-fired power station than renewable energy coupled to storage.”
