Confirms Queenslanders are paying the highest wholesale power prices in the country
A damning new report has laid bare serious failures by the Palaszczuk Labor Government that have resulted in Queensland’s wholesale electricity prices remaining the highest in the country.
The Auditor-General’s Report into Energy has raised serious questions about Labor’s ability to operate Queensland’s energy system after nearly a decade in office.
The report's findings include:
Shadow Energy Minister Pat Weir said these failures are driving up Queenslanders’ electricity bills in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.
“Families are paying more for power because of Labor’s chaos and crisis,” Mr Weir said.
“The Palaszczuk Government has failed to properly manage Queensland’s electricity network and now families are paying the highest electricity prices in the nation.
"The report raises so many serious questions that Labor must answer.
“In a stunning revelation, a Government IT project has blown out by more than $700 million since its initial $238 million budget in 2016.
“The blowout also includes a $43 million write off for ‘components of the project that were no longer expected to deliver benefits’.
“The Auditor-General has outlined scathing failures that make a mockery of good governance in this State, including a termination benefit paid not in accordance with Government policy.
“Labor’s Mick de Brenni needs to be open and transparent with Queenslanders and explain how much and to who the termination payment was given to.
“Mick de Brenni also needs to tell Queenslanders who was given access to confidential internal systems and whether Ministerial offices were given inappropriate access.
“Most of all, the Premier and Mick de Brenni needs to take urgent action to lower power prices for Queenslanders who are doing it tough in a cost-of-living crisis.”
Direct Quotes from the Report:
Electricity prices
“Although Queensland’s average annual wholesale price decreased, Queensland and New South Wales had the highest electricity price in Australia in 2022–23” Page 13
IT Upgrade
“Energy Queensland has been implementing its digital transformation program since 2016. The complexity of integrating multiple systems has caused delays in implementing the asset management and payroll system components. The program was originally scoped with a budget of $238 million and due for completion in June 2020. The approved budget was revised to $717 million in 2022. The program is now expected to be completed in June 2026 with the revised scope and at an estimated cost of $952 million.” Page 1
The program has included “writing off $43 million for components of the project that were no longer expected to deliver benefits” Page 7
Link between project blowouts and reduced cost savings and financial returns to Queensland
“The delays and cost increases will affect the cost savings and the financial returns to the Queensland Government (the shareholder).” Page 8
Termination payment
Report identifies 2 significant deficiencies including
“A termination payment made to senior management was not in accordance with the Queensland government owned corporations policy on Chief and Senior Executive Employment Arrangements issued by Queensland Treasury. We also identified similar weaknesses in other public sector entities and we will report these in our upcoming state entities 2023 report to parliament.” Page 5
Data issues
“Energy sector entities need to strengthen the security over their systems and processes (internal controls).” Page 1
“Figure 3A highlights that internal control weaknesses over information systems represented the majority of the deficiencies we reported to management in 2022–23. The most common weaknesses we identified related to how users access systems (access management), and how automated controls or security settings are implemented (security configuration), including:
