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Reader Pageboi has responded to one of the posts on energy costs:

I really appreciate the work TAI and others like Punters Politics are doing on the Gas problem, but I don’t think gas is the whole story. there’s also the insane decision to privatise the system, especially transmission and retail, all of which have to make their profits and must also be contributing to high prices. Just like child and aged care we shouldn’t have profit in essential services

So let’s take a look at that, from a report Dave Richardson did on this recently:

• AGL makes $755.01 profit per customer, per year for household electricity
• Origin makes $595.25 profit per customer, per year for household electricity
• AGL makes $414.04 profit per customer, per year for household gas
• Origin makes $417.57 profit per customer, per year for household gas
• Between June 1995 and June 2024, electricity prices increased at more than twice the rate of inflation.
• Between June 1995 and June 2024 gas prices increased at three times the rate of inflation.
• For every $100 of an AGL customer’s electricity bill $35 is profit, $34 goes to “network costs” (such as the cost of using poles and wires), $15 goes to “other costs” (such as advertising) and just $12 is spent generating electricity. $4 covers “depreciation and amortisation”.