Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated that there were no quick solutions to fixing the ongoing energy crisis gripping the east coast of the country, as he prepares to discuss the crisis with state and territory leaders on Friday. 

“It’s no good gilding the lily and pretending that that hasn’t happened, and it can’t just be fixed overnight,” the Prime Minister said.

“What we’re doing is taking immediate action to assist households and businesses through the Australian Energy Market Operator, using the tools which are at its disposal.” 

While the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has been able to effectively manage the country’s energy supply to meet demand after it suspended the spot price market on Wednesday, households have been warned to brace for more power challenges in the coming weeks. 

“There have been significant improvements in AEMO’s certainty of generator availability and limitations,” it said on Thursday. 

“Despite this, challenges remain in the energy sector.” 

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said while the AEMO intervention was unusual, it was necessary. 

“We’re in this situation because of the failure of the former Liberal government to do anything in relation to energy policy and the wars which were going on inside their party room,” he said. 

“We’ll be working with the large energy companies, the larger users, to try and make sure that we can moderate the supply and demand in the market, we’re working our way through this crisis.” 

The Prime Minister said power costs were higher as a result of inaction by the previous government on energy policy. 

“We haven’t had any of the investment that’s required into new energy, and when we’ve had that energy, we haven’t fixed the transmission grid,” he said. 

“There are issues and we’re facing them, we’re dealing with the immediate consequences as well as making sure we actually fix the problems which are there.” 

However, Nationals leader David Littleproud said that while the previous coalition government had been in power for nine years, the issues impacting the energy sector were more recent. 

“This is something that’s only just emerged over the last 100 days when (Russian President) Vladimir Putin crossed the border into Ukraine,” he said.

“It’s been exacerbated by the fact that a number of power stations had to have repairs and annual maintenance, it’s all come together at one juncture.” 

Gas prices have soared following the war in Ukraine and other supply issues, and a number of Australian coal-fired power stations have also gone offline because of ageing technology. 

With AAP

Eliza Sayon

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Eliza is a content producer and editor at Public Spectrum. She is an experienced writer on topics related to the government and to the public, as well as stories that uplift and improve the community.

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