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Thursday, 01 September 2011 11:32

JUST when you thought your electricity bill had gone up far enough, gas prices too have increased. This increase would have been somewhat easier to swallow at around four per cent, were it not for AGL changing their pricing structure for its retail customers.
AGL has decided that it’s more than reasonable to charge low consumption at a much higher rate than any of the higher consumption tiers. They’ve increased the charge for the first 41.096 megajoules (MJ) per day by a staggering 41% while reducing the daily service charge by 17%.

Below is a breakdown of the old and new prices which took effect on 5 August.

AGL Gas Prices effective 5 August 2011

An increase of less than one cent doesn’t sound like much, but it very quickly adds up. A household using 15,000MJ a year will now be paying nearly over $15 more on their quarterly bill, an increase of 12%. This level of consumption is below the average of 23,000MJ per household, according to IPART, and is the sort of level many single and couple resident households would use.

The consequences of this, of course, are that those who can least afford it – pensioners and other low-income earners – are being punished for consuming less energy than other households and put in even greater financial difficulty.
The price change also doesn’t make any sense from an environmental or efficiency perspective. By jacking up the price at the lower end, it rewards those who can afford to use more or waste energy.

What’s worse is that despite there being an energy price regulator, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART), nothing can prevent AGL from making such a price structure change. IPART regulates standard gas prices and by how much they can increase, but cannot regulate how retailers charge their customers. So AGL is free to pump up the charge for initial consumption, which everyone has to pay, and reduce the charges for the rates that barely anyone uses.

CPSA has sought for IPART to be given the powers to regulate such pricing structure changes, but it’s thus far fallen on deaf ears. This would allow groups such as CPSA to put forward a case where prices are fairer to households that do not use much energy and are on low incomes.

http://www.cpsa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=419:agl-punishes-low-energy-users&catid=4:cost-of-living&Itemid=46

• Couples need up to $55k a year for retirement
• Annual income needs are up $1000, and rising
• Phone companies told to get real on bills

THE average Australian couple will need between $31,500 and $55,000 a year to maintain their lifestyle in retirement following a jump in living costs of more than $1000 during the past year.

According to the latest superannuation pension and retirement forecasts released yesterday, $31,500 a year will pay for a “modest” lifestyle while $55,000 will provide a “comfortable” retirement.

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia report to June 2011 shows increased costs have pushed up annual income requirements by more than $1000 in the past year, with food, transport and health costs continuing to rise.

Association chief executive Pauline Vamos said retiree households spent differently to the wider population, with a greater outlay on food, health, transport and recreation.

“Between the March and June quarters retirees faced a 1.4 per cent increase in the cost of food and over the year to June the increase was 6.1 per cent,” Ms Vamos said.

The latest statistics also included estimates on how much of a lump sum or nest egg retirees would need to provide top-up income to boost their age pensions.

For a modest lifestyle, a couple would need a lump sum of only $35,000 to provide enough extra income on top of the full $29,400 government age pension.

For a comfortable lifestyle, however, a couple would need a lump sum of $510,000, as they would only qualify for a part-age pension.

Yesterday, the Australian Prudential and Regulation Authority reported that the nation’s superannuation pool had increased 10.9 per cent to $1.34 trillion during the year.

Retiree costs jump $1000 a year | Herald Sun

Thursday, 01 September 2011 11:32

JUST when you thought your electricity bill had gone up far enough, gas prices too have increased. This increase would have been somewhat easier to swallow at around four per cent, were it not for AGL changing their pricing structure for its retail customers.

AGL has decided that it’s more than reasonable to charge low consumption at a much higher rate than any of the higher consumption tiers.

They’ve increased the charge for the first 41.096 megajoules (MJ) per day by a staggering 41% while reducing the daily service charge by 17%.

Below is a breakdown of the old and new prices which took effect on 5 August.

AGL Gas Prices effective 5 August 2011

Gas usage	Old charges	New charges
First 41.096 MJ/day	1.9492 c/MJ	2.7401 c/MJ
Next 49.315 MJ/day	1.8667 c/MJ	1.6489 c/MJ
Next 189.041 MJ/day	1.8040 c/MJ	1.6258 c/MJ
Next 2,465.753 MJ/day	1.7479 c/MJ	1.6115 c/MJ
Next 10,964.384 MJ/day	1.7380 c/MJ	1.5224 c/MJ
Remaining balance	1.7325 c/MJ	1.3772 c/MJ
Service charge	57.409 c/day	47.498 c/day

An increase of less than one cent doesn’t sound like much, but it very quickly adds up. A household using 15,000MJ a year will now be paying nearly over $15 more on their quarterly bill, an increase of 12%. This level of consumption is below the average of 23,000MJ per household, according to IPART, and is the sort of level many single and couple resident households would use.

The consequences of this, of course, are that those who can least afford it – pensioners and other low-income earners – are being punished for consuming less energy than other households and put in even greater financial difficulty.

The price change also doesn’t make any sense from an environmental or efficiency perspective. By jacking up the price at the lower end, it rewards those who can afford to use more or waste energy.

What’s worse is that despite there being an energy price regulator, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART), nothing can prevent AGL from making such a price structure change.

IPART regulates standard gas prices and by how much they can increase, but cannot regulate how retailers charge their customers.

So AGL is free to pump up the charge for initial consumption, which everyone has to pay, and reduce the charges for the rates that barely anyone uses.

CPSA has sought for IPART to be given the powers to regulate such pricing structure changes, but it’s thus far fallen on deaf ears. This would allow groups such as CPSA to put forward a case where prices are fairer to households that do not use much energy and are on low incomes. 

I retired in July 2010 and a couple of week ago we went to see the accountants with all the usual paperwork to do my last tax return. Arrived home today after tending to the horses and a bit of shopping and the first thing is to check the mail box. These days we don’t like to see anything in there but today was a pleasant surprise, a nice healthy cheque from the ATO!

So that’s it, for me personally no more tax returns  – hooray.

But wait…tax returns have not disappeared completely, we have our own SMSF that requires an annual tax return around Feb of each year. Never mind next time around the tax return will be very straight forward, no contributions or any other stuff just a pension paid out from monthly interest earned on a term deposit with a regional bank. I don’t think we will need an actuary report will will reduce costs even further.

Checked the post box today and something from the family accountants?

A cheque from the ATO for $2500 – finally. This is for two super co-contributions that I put into our SMSF for ET – the wife.

I posted about this 12 months ago, the first contribution of $1000 was three years ago when the govt. was offering $1.50 for every $1.00 put into super up to $1000 for people below a certain income level, that’s $1500. With Labour having spent all the surplus Wayne Swan started his penny pinching crusade and the co-contribution was reduced to a dollar for a dollar which amounts  to $1000 –that adds up to $2500.

The exact amount is actually $2500.01, yep…two thousand and five hundred dollars and one cent.