Australian power consumers have just started opening their winter power bills, which are fully 20% higher than this time last year. By comparison, Australia’s underlying rate of inflation is around 1.5%.

The consequences for the economy, as a whole, are just starting to bite.

Restaurants, bars and retailers are copping it from both ends.

Business customers – often on retail power contracts with fixed prices for two or three years – are watching their power costs almost double, as they enter new contracts with prices fixed at the current rates.

And the customers who consume what these businesses hope to offer, have been forced to cut back on expenditure, simply to be in a position to pay their own rocketing power bills. Some might call it a vicious circle.

STT calls it a self-inflicted economic suicide.

Shoppers stay away as power costs bite
Adam Creighton
The Australian
6 October 2017