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Tuesday, 16 November 2010, 18:35
Power bill shock as electricity soars USD240 a year
 The increase will force more Queenslanders to change their habits and put at risk underprivileged people, who are already feeling the strain of four consecutive annual rises during which the average power bill has jumped $716, or 52 per cent.
The Queensland Competition Authority attributed 10 per cent of the price increase to higher costs for telemarketing by electricity retailers.
The price hike means the average annual household electricity bill will soar to $2046 in the new financial year. Energy Minister Stephen Robertson and the industry argued that the increase was to build and maintain infrastructure.
"Many Queenslanders are doing it tough, and they will feel this increase," Mr Robertson said.
The competition authority revealed a 13.29 per cent hike in power prices from July 1.
Rocketing electricity costs are the latest hip-pocket hit, following successive interest rate rises and increasing fuel and registration costs.
The rise will be the fourth since the State Government claimed opening up the southeast Queensland market to competition would put downward pressure on prices.
According to the QCA, more than 60 per cent of the increase was caused by the need to expand and improve the network as the population grows and consumers use more power. Rising coal and gas costs also contributed to a third of the power price rise.
And a 9 per cent surge in the cost of retailers selling electricity accounts to customers – including advertising, telemarketing and door-to-door sales – also helped drive up prices.
Mr Robertson said while he was "disappointed" by the decision, he would not intervene to ease the pain for households.
"If I was to intervene to reduce these prices it would see a reduction in investment in our electricity system, and we would very quickly return to . . . when we were having blackouts and brownouts as a result of under-investment in our electricity system," he said.
But Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek said the price rises underlined the mismanagement of electricity assets over the past decade.
Queensland Council of Social Service president Karyn Walsh said the price hike would hurt 400,000 people living on the poverty line, and urged the Government to extend concessions to the unemployed.
"Already Queensland has the second-highest disconnection rate of over 16,000 Queenslanders, and we will see more people living without electricity for more periods of time," she said.
The Energy Retailers Association of Australia described the hike as a "necessary response".
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Sunday, 5 February 2012, 00:00
Enterprise Campus Management Corp has announced that its Talisma CRM solution has been taken for deployment at the University of Nebraska in order to launch and enhance optimal enrolment and graduation rates.
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