One of the painful truths many on the North Coast and the rest of NSW have to live with

Being a NSW region high on the aging demographic tree and lower on the average weekly household income scale, with a consistently higher than national or state unemployment levels, there is often real pain attached those quarterly electricity bills for many local people.

So it was good to see the Prime Minister articulate the some of the difficulties faced,  in her keynote speech to the Energy Policy Institute at a gathering of the worst power industry price gougers at the Sydney Intercontinental Hotel on 7 August 2012:

People are paying a lot more – in some states, bills have gone up almost a thousand dollars in just a few years.

It is very clear that working Australians, pensioners, the sick, the aged, people who need the most help, the people Labor Governments are elected to represent. These are the people who are feeling the most pressure.

Meanwhile, some states, like New South Wales and Queensland, are doing very well out of this financially and their revenue from some electricity assets is growing much faster than in the private sector.......

As a recent AGL Energy review noted, while wealthier households can cut power costs through more efficient devices and solar panels, the poorest customers are exposed to the full cost of the increases.

As a Labor Prime Minister, I feel very deeply concerned about the plight of pensioners and poorer families who spend a greater proportion of their income on power.

The less disposable income you have, the harder it is to manage large lumpy bills, like power bills.

And buying clean energy appliances – everything from new and more efficient whitegoods to rooftop solar panels – is plainly easier if you earn more........

Fifty per cent price increases in many states over four years – linked to demonstrable inefficiencies in resource allocation in the market.

Or in this state, New South Wales – nearly seventy per cent increases.

With half the extra cost due to increased network charges.

People are paying much more for the so-called “poles and wires” – not to produce electricity but just to move it around the system.

A long term trend of price increases like this cannot be sustained.

Not economically, not socially. No market can sustain this, let alone a market which delivers one of the essentials of life.

It’s a huge cost to our economy.

Full transcript of the Prime Minister's speech is here.

Premier Barry O'Farrell, Energy Minister Chris Hartcher et al may huff and puff all they like, but Julia Gillard is speaking a solid truth