He said they didn’t want dirt-cheap power if it was going to be unreliable.

Despite the formation of two national regulatory bodies – the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Markets Commission – he said there was still no commitment to move distribution regulation from the states to the national bodies.

He told the audience at the Energy Supply Association meeting that the Federal Government should accelerate the introduction of a uniform national retail licence, rather than continue the practice if retailers being licenced by State authorities.

“It seems to me that the immediate need for a uniform national retail licence got blurred into the whole issue of a single national regulator, and all the time-consuming legislative arrangements that entails.

“It is obvious that to operate anywhere in the National Electricity Market, retailers should have to obtain a single national licence.”