[Greens-Media] Tas Greens_Bell-Bay Buy Back Response_K Booth MP

[greens at parliament.tas.gov.au]

COSTLY BELL BAY BUY-BACK PREDICTED

Consumers to Pay for Labor's Energy Bungles

Kim Booth MP
Greens Shadow Energy spokesperson

Monday, 18 August 2008
Contact: State Parliamentary Offices of the Tasmanian Greens, (03) 6233
8300

www.tas.greens.org.au


The Tasmanian Greens said today that the Bartlett government's
confirmation that they intend to buy back the Tamar Valley power station
at Bell Bay from Babcock and Brown, which the Greens had predicted
barely a week ago, has exposed that the state's energy strategy is in
tatters.

Greens Shadow Energy spokesperson Kim Booth MP said that the Labor's
announcement that they would buy back the power station for $100 million
while Aurora would foot the $240 million bill to complete the upgrade,
was an indictment on the lack of coherent strategy and planning by the
government, and also raised further concerns about whether the station
will end up being an expensive 'stranded asset'. 

Mr Booth also said that it will be the Mum and Dad electricity consumers
who pay the price for this buy-back through increased electricity bills.

"When I announced last week that the Bartlett government would buy the
Babcock and Brown power station at Bell Bay, it was met with a wall of
spin and denial and yet less than a week later exactly what I had
predicted has been confirmed," Mr Booth said.

"It now appears that the Bartlett government was attempting to keep the
purchase secret in order to dress up a disaster, in terms of a crisis in
the state's energy strategy, as good news."

"The government needs to explain what has changed so quickly to the
extent that a half-finished potential lemon is now worth purchasing,
when only last year the government was adamant that the best option was
to sell this station on the bogus grounds of retiring debt."

"It now appears that Aurora will need to go into debt to complete the
station's upgrade."

"Babcock's power station is a half-finished project, and one which we
suspect cannot connect into the grid."

"The challenge is now on the government to detail how they intend to
connect the station, and how it will put back on track the State's
desperately needed Energy strategy," Mr Booth said.

Mr Booth reminded that the Greens were the only Party to vote against
the sale of the Bell Bay power station, and had the government not sold
it the design of the generators would have been to suit the Tasmanian
electricity grid frequency controlled requirements but instead Labor is
now purchasing by knee-jerk reaction equipment that was purchased to
suit the needs of Babcock and Brown and which may not be able to be
connected to the grid, or if so, at a vastly reduced capacity.



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