How times have changed: Gillard open to more US forces

The Australian Left used to be implacably hostile to the presence of U.S. military facilities in Australia. So what we read below from a Prime Minister from the Left faction of a Leftist party is rather a surprise -- not that any historically aware person expects consistency from Leftists

JULIA Gillard says she is "all ears" about the possibility of the US placing more military forces on Australian soil if it believes this is necessary in the light of the growing might of China and India.

The Prime Minister has told The Australian she will use her meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington this week to discuss his nation's ongoing force posture review and how Australia could co-operate with any changes in the deployment of its military resources.

She made the comment in an interview with The Australian before leaving for her week-long visit, during which she will visit the White House and key US administration officials and will also address congress.

"We are looking to further co-operation on the contemporary defence challenges of our age," said Ms Gillard, who arrived in Washington yesterday for briefings from local Australian officials, including ambassador Kim Beazley. "We've got discussions to have about the contemporary engagement of America in our region, including its defence engagement as it goes through its defence posture review."

The discussions would also cover the US's diplomatic engagement, particularly with China and India.

The Prime Minister said she could not pre-empt what the US might want to do with the distribution of its military forces throughout the Asia-Pacific area. "But clearly we can be engaged and discussing what is possible in terms of collaboration with their defence force," she said.

Describing the relationship between Australia and the US as the equivalent of "great mates", Ms Gillard said she would also discuss with Mr Obama the conduct of the war in Afghanistan as well as security concerns and regional concerns such as security on the Korean peninsula. Ms Gillard's official program will begin late tonight, Australian time, when she visits the Lincoln Memorial and is due to announce a $3 million Australian contribution to the US's official Vietnam memorial.

The Australian-funded component will feature details of the 521 Australian Vietnam War casualties as well as displays and temporary exhibitions on Anzac Day, Long Tan Day and other significant Australian milestones.

She will then visit Mr Obama at the White House ahead of meetings with US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and various other officials. On Wednesday, Australian time, she will continue talks with officials, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She will then wind up the Washington leg of her trip with an address to congress.

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Leftist hypocrite says people should respect their leaders

I am sure Hitler and Stalin felt the same. And this government is even less legitimate than Hitler's. Hitler's government was a coalition of nationalist parties. The present Australian governing coalition is an unholy alliance of Leftists, Greens and turncoat conservatives.

Furthermore it takes two to tango and respect has to be earned. If Leftists want respect from conservatives they should halt their abuse of conservatives. See here for some examples of the hate and abuse that the Left have recently hurled at conservatives.

The author of the excerpt below is Phillip Coorey, a reliably Leftist writer for a reliably leftist rag

When the boatload of asylum seekers smashed into rocks off Christmas Island just before Christmas, certain radio shock jocks went into a lather.

Julie Bishop was acting opposition leader and found herself being interviewed by Andrew Bolt and Steve Price on Melbourne's MTR.

Bolt, the conservative columnist who expends a great amount of energy lecturing members of the Canberra press gallery on how to do their jobs, has a particular distaste for Labor's asylum seeker policy. As is the norm for such "interviews", he tended to make statements and seek agreement.

"Look, Julie," he said, "this is a tragedy that is a direct consequence of the government policies that led to a resumption of the boat people trade. They were warned, the opposition warned them. I think today, now that the rescue operation is over, today is the time we start to hold people accountable. Would you agree?"

Bishop tried to play a straight bat. "After any tragedy it is natural and appropriate for people to ask how did it happen, could it have been prevented," she said. "There will be many questions, no doubt there will be an official investigation, there will be formal inquiries . . . a coroner's inquest, as there have been in the past. The Western Australian . . . "

Bolt interjected: "Julie, it seems to me you're reluctant, you've been intimidated out of talking about the contributing factors to this tragedy. Is it not true that these people were lured to their deaths?"

On it went until an increasingly agitated Bolt, according to Bishop, simply hung up on her.

Previously, Bolt and Price had hung up on independent Rob Oakeshott because he wouldn't give a straight answer on whom he was likely to support to form minority government. When Tony Windsor went public last week with concerns about the increasingly dangerous tone of public discourse, Bolt promoted his Wednesday morning radio show with the item: "Tony Windsor's attempt to play the victim to shut down a debate. We recall how this man who wants to 'take on' talkback hosts hung up on me the last time he tried."

The boys at MTR are far from the only culprits contributing to increasing disrespect for the nation's leaders. Gary Hardgrave, a shock jock who became a minister under the Howard government before losing his Brisbane seat and returning to radio, hung up on Greens leader Bob Brown 10 days ago.

Brown tweeted afterwards: "What a spineless uninformed jock Gary Hardgrave is, who when losing the argument cut off the i'view! Voters of Moreton knew a thing or two!"

In their defence, radio jocks are not journalists per se and therefore are not strictly bound to address politicians publicly by their titles or Mr, Ms or Mrs. But is there any cause to be rude, regardless of the temperature of the debate or personal views?

3AW's Neil Mitchell interviewed Julia Gillard just days after she announced the flood levy and the shock jocks were proclaiming the end of the world. The interview began with an accusation more than a question: "Prime Minister, with your government's history of mismanagement, like the insulation program, school rebuilding, who are you going to put in charge of the spending of this money you're going to take from us?"

Mitchell's line of inquiry was perfectly legitimate, but was the tone of the question?

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IMMIGRATION ROUNDUP

Three current articles below

Keeping the illegals waiting

THE average time spent processing refugee claims has blown out to 165 days - nearly twice the government's 90-day target for appeals by asylum seekers. And the average time spent in detention for all unauthorised arrivals - including those whose claims have been rejected - stands at 213 days.

Information provided to The Australian Online by the Immigration Department confirms the numbers of boat arrivals are straining the detention network, causing blow-outs to processing times and longer stays for asylum seekers in detention.

In just over two years, 3438 visas have been granted to boat people with the majority coming from Afghanistan. Since 2008, only 190 asylum seekers had been removed from Australia including 15 who were removed involuntarily. At the end of last week there were still 6194 asylum seekers in detention 2526 on Christmas Island and 3668 in mainland facilities.

The department said the longest time in detention for a current detainee was almost three years. The person was doing a second stint in detention after being turned back once before. There are currently five boat people who have been in detention for two years or more.

The government announced last week it would open up a new $10 million detention facility 35 km southeast of Darwin because the current detention network was under pressure.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the new 1500-bed facility was necessary to prevent overcrowding in existing facilities.

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A hidden agenda

Australia is a nation of migrants and has had an unceasing flow of them from the beginning. It has a higher proportion of its population foreign-born than any other nation except Israel. It was one of the few nations to take Jews fleeing from Hitler.

So it is mildly surprising to see an article in a major Sri Lankan newspaper headed "Secrets of Australian immigration history" -- an article that denounces Australian immigration policy in round terms.

It is particularly surprising when one considers that there are these days large numbers of Sri Lankan nationals risking life and limb in order to get to Australia as illegal immigrants. The illegals obviously think Australia is a pretty good place.

So what is going on? Simple: The Sri Lankan government and many Sinhalese are embarrassed by the flight of many of their Tamil citizens and want to put them off fleeing to Australia! As Tamils have a history of implacability and turning to terrorism to get what they want, I rather hope that the propaganda succeeds

Some excerpts below. They present a very warped view of Australia, albeit with some element of truth:

The Australian government’s white Australia policy which was eventually abandoned by the government in the 70s was very similar to Adolf Hitler’s ideology of racial purity. The only difference being the Australian Government did not round up Jews and send them to gas chambers, but strongly believed in a white superior race and wanted to maintain this status quo and had taken some extraordinary steps to enforce this.

Present times

Australian migration is open to all nationalities nowadays, provided there is a skill to offer to Australia or in some cases humanitarian grounds and there are laws to prevent discrimination based on the individual’s ethnic origins in Australia.

But majority of Australians still look at non white nationalities as a threat to the Australian way of life and often treat them as second-class citizens. In a recent times, the Sydney suburb of Cronulla witnessed race riots. Quite unfortunately most of perpetrators of Cronulla riots were white Anglo young Australians and they rioted against migrants of any ethnicity under theme of “we were born here you were flown here”.

At the time the Prime Minister of the day failed to condemn the riots and saw the situation as young people expressing their misguided view in a democratic country. New South Wales Police contained the riots with great difficulty which were caused by migrants using a beach in Cronulla usually inhabited by white Australian young males.

Mandatory detention

The current Australian policy is mandatory detention of any person seeking asylum in Australia. Thousands of displaced refugees are currently detainees. Some of them were stationed at an offshore detention centre called Christmas Island and a recent investigation by Australian Government Ombudsman had found these detainees to be held under very poor conditions.

In some instances, women and children were detained for long periods while immigration officials look into their asylum request. Quite unfortunately refugees from a number of countries including Sri Lankans are facing these difficult circumstances in Australia. Australia is the only country in the developed world which has a mandatory detention policy for refugees and asylum seekers. In conclusion modern Australia has allowed immigration to non white nationalities with great reluctance.

Unfortunately due to inability to fill the country with white Anglo Saxon British subjects, the Government was forced to allow the immigration to non white ethnicities. If this was not done Australia as a nation would have faced difficult economic circumstances and would likely have been classified as a Third World country. Australia had taken the decision to remain as an economically wealthy but moving away from white Australia policy with great reluctance and resistance.

More HERE

Australians fleeing the overcrowded and traffic-strangled big cities

Overcrowding that is largely the result of high immigration levels

AUSTRALIA is undergoing a historic shift in population movements, with the once pervasive flow of people to the city giving way to a regional retreat that will require governments to fund more infrastructure and services outside state capitals.

Far greater than any sea change or tree change effect, the new trend, identified in a study commissioned by the Gillard government, will challenge the notion that Australians are overwhelmingly big-city dwellers.

A draft report of the $110,000 study, conducted by Graeme Hugo and Kevin Harris from the University of Adelaide, has been obtained by The Australian under Freedom of Information laws. It was commissioned by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and will not only guide future settlement policies, but also the work of Population Minister Tony Burke as he tries to better control and direct population growth and movements.

While the congregation of people in capital cities continued to 1981, the researchers found that "since then there has been stability in the proportion of Australians living in the capitals".

"The recent evidence is clear that the perception of a 'drift' to capital cities from their hinterlands is no longer the case, and that the prevailing flow from capital cities to hinterlands has significant implications," they write.

Coastal areas and near-city regions, in particular, are recording significant growth, with families (who seek a better lifestyle and improved services) and baby boomers (who lose their work ties to the city upon retirement) leading the charge. Sydney's reputation as a gateway city for immigrants is also slipping, with more newcomers favouring Melbourne, and others encouraged to start off in the regions.

Adam and Farrah Lance certainly wondered "what the hell" they were doing as they worked gruelling hours in their respective top-tier financial firms in Sydney's CBD and fought congestion to and from their Bronte Beach home.

Four years ago, they moved to Merewether, just south of Newcastle, buying a house 200m from the beach -- two hours away from their family in Sydney, but with more space and a better lifestyle. "It's great for raising children here, there's space at the beach, lots of parks to play in and there's just not the same stress," Ms Lance said yesterday, with children Savannah, 2, and four-year-old Jasper. "Especially for Adam it's much better, he's so much more relaxed up here."

The couple have found jobs in Newcastle. Ms Lance is working two days a week in public relations while Mr Lance, who had been commuting to Sydney, has found full-time work only a 10-minute drive from their home. "There is not really peak-hour traffic here," Ms Lance said. "Also, your money goes further up here; the house prices are definitely cheaper."

The researchers' draft report casts capital cities in a dim light and states that Sydney, in particular, has an environment which is not conducive to attracting or retaining people.

Australia's pre-eminent metropolis is losing so many residents - offset only by international migrants - that the researchers believe it must have "social and economic" problems.

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GREENIE ROUNDUP

Four current articles below

Greens lead us along costly path

A DANGEROUS new dynamic has entered Australian economic management, Green voodoo economics. It threatens to not only make a weak Government even more ineffectual, but to do real lasting damage to our economy and its future.

The Greens appear to truly believe economics works in such a way that they can have their cake and eat it too. They want to tax the nasty carbon polluters without impacting on consumers. If only it was truly that simple.

Bob Brown tells us he "wants the polluters to pay". What he fails to realise is that we have seen the polluters and they are us.

Every time we drive a car, we are, in his words, polluting. Unless we have very expensive green power, every time we turn on the TV or dishwasher or any other electric appliance, we are polluting. Every time we turn the lights on in an office or use the lift or buy something that has been transported by a truck, we are polluting.

If we want to tax carbon then someone has to pay, and it will not be some anonymous nasty big business, it will be the consumer. It will be us.

As a scientist I believe that climate change is both real and caused by our carbon emissions. It is obvious that something has to be done to seriously limit emissions on a global scale. As an economist, I can see major damage being done to our economy if we go about this in a naive and ham-fisted way.

The clear policy influence that the Greens are now exerting, together with the extreme policy caution of the new Government, provides little hope of any sensible outcome. Rather a carbon tax in the absence of any permitting system to actually limit emissions will almost certainly result in higher prices with little if anything by way of emissions reductions to show for it.

All a carbon tax is likely to do is make the Greens feel good and do lasting damage to the economy.

Be in no doubt that this will be a job-destroying, wealth-destroying tax, but the real issue here is that massive changes in our economy are being decided on the basis of short-term political convenience and ridiculous idealistic and ideological notions of how economics works.

In reality, we now have the least economically competent government since the disastrous Whitlam years of 1972-75. Just like then, we have a Prime Minister who appears disinterested in economic realities and an incredibly powerful bloc from the Left who, while well-meaning, have no idea of the real consequences of the road they are hell-bent on taking us down.

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Unions getting aggressive about job losses under a carbon tax

THE union movement is demanding Julia Gillard develop a comprehensive industry plan to sustain jobs and refocus production under her proposed carbon price.

ACTU president Ged Kearney told The Australian Online that a detailed plan, similar to the Button Plan of the 1980s, was the price of union support for Labor's climate change response.

The demand follows that of mining giant Rio Tinto, which wants more generous compensation and industry protection than Kevin Rudd's 2009 scheme.

Ms Kearney said tackling climate change would involve the biggest structural change to the economy in a generation.

“Just as the opening of the Australian economy in the 1980s was accompanied by far-reaching industry policy, whatever carbon pricing mechanism is eventually adopted must integrate an industry policy focus to drive the growth in clean economy jobs and services so that outcomes can be maximised,” she said.

“Industry policy during the transition to a low-pollution economy must include assistance to emissions intensive-trade exposed industries, incentives to source locally to generate jobs and demand, investment in clean energy jobs and industries, and skills development and retraining to tool the workforce for the low-carbon economy.”

A spokesman for Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said some of the money raised by the carbon tax would go towards industry adjustment, but it was too early to say how that would occur.

If the government is to agree to the unions' demands, it will have to act swiftly. An interim carbon tax is due to be introduced by July next year.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Dave Oliver said a far-reaching industry policy should be a key plank in the carbon pricing strategy. He said he was “disappointed and perplexed” that, on the eve of climate plan being announced, the government had axed its green cars plan.

He said Ms Gillard had likened her climate plan to the great reforms of the Hawke and Keating governments - including the floating of the dollar and the lowering of tariff walls - but those reforms were accompanied by the Button Plan. “We need a 21st century plan for an innovative future in green energy, efficient technology and clean production.”

The 1984 Button Plan, named after then federal industry minister John Button, involved the overhaul of the nation's car industry to make it more efficient, allowing tarriffs to be gradually lowered.

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Big business getting restless about the carbon tax too

MINING giant Rio Tinto has put Julia Gillard on notice that business will demand her carbon pricing plan offer more generous compensation and industry protection than Kevin Rudd's 2009 scheme because of the international community's failure to reach a global deal on carbon prices.

In his first major entry into the climate change debate since the Prime Minister last month unveiled plans to price carbon from July 1 next year, Rio's Australian managing director, David Peever, says the changed global outlook means the government should acknowledge that Mr Rudd's carbon pollution reduction scheme "is not an appropriate starting point for discussions in 2011".

In an article published today in The Australian, Mr Peever calls for "real world" modelling of industry transition being forced by the carbon price.

He warns that a carbon price will "inevitably be disastrous" in a downturn for businesses unable to pass on the extra costs to their customers. And, in a thinly veiled shot at the Greens, he describes as "bizarre" the logic surrounding the debate about maintaining Australia's international competitiveness.

Mr Peever - a member of the federal government's business roundtable on climate change and one of three mining industry leaders who led the campaign against Labor's resource super-profits tax - says that for three decades economic reform has focused on increasing Australia's productivity and competitiveness.

"Remarkably, however, when it comes to the issue of carbon, trade-exposed Australian firms that insist on maintaining a level playing field with the international competitors are liable to be dismissed as self-interested rent-seekers," he writes.

Rio's export operations would have faced an additional $3 billion cost over 10 years from the final design of the CPRS, which offered almost $50bn in compensation to industry and mining in its first decade. "But according to the bizarre logic of some at the time, the scheme amounted to a windfall for corporate Australia and was slated as a prime example of reprehensible rent-seeking," Mr Peever writes.

According to figures provided by Rio to the Climate Change Department, the company's annual carbon tax bill would be about $154 million if the tax was set at $20 a tonne for every tonne of carbon pollution.

Mr Peever dismisses as "more rhetoric than fact" suggestions that Australia lags the rest of the world in emissions reduction action and warns "care also needs to be taken to avoid overstating Australia's influence in the global debate".

Australian industry, particularly the steelmaking sector, is becoming increasingly vocal about the potential impact of Ms Gillard's carbon pricing plan, which imposes a tax from July 1 next year before morphing into an emissions trading scheme in three to five years.

Yesterday, oil and gas giant Woodside Petroleum called for the company's trade-exposed exports to be exempt from any price on carbon, given the absence of an international agreement on pricing greenhouse gas emissions. "Woodside's position on exemption for its trade-exposed exports recognises the important role liquefied natural gas plays in helping lower global greenhouse gas emissions," the company said.

Woodside, which could be forced to pay about $168m if the price of carbon was set at $20 a tonne, said the government's framework needed to acknowledge that LNG was regarded internationally as a cleaner transition fuel towards an alternative energy future.

Mr Peever says any impost on Australian exports in the new carbon pricing regime "must be based on rigorous, fact-based analysis of the carbon costs being borne by similar industries in Australia's competitor countries". And unlike the 2009 CPRS proposal, where emissions-intensive industries exposed to foreign competitors had come under pressure to justify any shielding from the proposed carbon price until their competitors faced a comparable impost, "this time the onus of proof should be reversed".

The government yesterday moved to counter Tony Abbott's campaign against its carbon plan, with Wayne Swan declaring the carbon tax would apply only to a small number of companies and that householders would be compensated for any price rises.

"It is not the case that the government is going to take the carbon price out of your pay packet . . . It is paid by a small number of large polluters and that revenue is then used to assist industry and households," the Treasurer said.

The government is understood to be looking at the tax system - through Centrelink or through the family tax benefits system - to provide assistance to households.But Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb said there would be no environmental gain from the carbon package because industries would move offshore. He also dismissed former leader Malcolm Turnbull's support for an ETS.

Mr Robb conceded that "while there may be one or two others who support an ETS . . . Malcolm and the rest of the frontbench and party will support the position we've got because the position we've got, we feel, is in the interests of Australia".

The government seized on his defence of the opposition's direct-action policy as "market based" because it would accept the lowest bids to fund abatement measures. "Australia's economy moved away from picking winners and towards market mechanisms decades ago - it is time Andrew Robb and the Liberal Party got with the program," Mr Swan said.

Rio Tinto's entry into the debate underlines the political dilemma faced by Ms Gillard and Mr Combet as they prepare to begin negotiations with the Greens on the detail of her carbon package.

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State governments getting at Gillard over solar subsidy

JULIA Gillard is under pressure from the states to roll back generous subsidies for rooftop solar schemes amid predictions that escalating costs from the federal renewable energy scheme will add as much as $90 to yearly household power bills.

The jump in electricity prices is also expected to drive water bills up by raising the costs of treating and transporting water and to run energy-guzzling desalination plants.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has urged the Prime Minister to reconsider the subsidy for rooftop solar schemes, worth $6200 in most cities, to relieve the burden on household budgets from rising power prices.

The West Australian government says the subsidies "may require review" given the costs.

NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell says he will consider the matter at a solar summit he has pledged if he wins office as widely forecast on March 26.

Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings says her government is concerned about the costs to households relating to the design of the federal renewables scheme in Tasmania as well as the solar policies of other states.

The situation could further complicate attempts by Ms Gillard to compensate families for the costs of her plan to put a price on carbon pollution from the middle of next year.

The Queensland pricing regulator has proposed a $26 rise to the average quarterly power bill of $440 from July 1. Half of this is related to changes to the federal renewable energy target system, which requires energy retailers to buy high-cost power pumped back into the grid by households with rooftop solar schemes and from bigger wind farms.

Energy retailers are required to buy increasing numbers of renewable energy certificates under the government's RET scheme, which aims to have 20 per cent of the nation's power generated by renewable sources by 2020.

AGL Energy, Origin Energy and EnergyAustralia say the proposed price rises do not go far enough and are demanding an even bigger price rise in the regulator's final decision, due in late May.

Origin cites concern that the costs associated with the changes to federal Labor's RET have not been fully recognised by the pricing regulator, while AGL says the situation could cause energy retailers to suffer a "significant loss".

The renewables scheme is one of federal Labor's key climate change policies but it has been adjusted several times. The scheme was split into two parts from January 1 - one for small-scale generators such as rooftop solar panels and the other for commercial systems such as wind farms. But the costs of the small-scale scheme grew as householders took the government up on incentives for installing solar panels.

The federal government announced in December that it would scale back the subsidies for households and the Keneally government in NSW has cut its solar feed-in tariff.

But Origin says this has been offset by falling costs to buy solar panels and a strong solar industry. On top of this, Origin says that the cost of large-scale renewable energy certificates has already risen about 25 per cent this year - from $29.50 in December to about $35.

In January the renewable energy regulator increased the number of certificates power retailers had to buy to deal with a glut caused by a flood of solar panel installations.

Tasmania's Aurora Energy had expected annual bills to increase by $60 from July 1 to cover the costs of the renewable energy scheme but now expected the increased cost to it would be another $30 per customer - bringing the total rise related to the RET for 2011-12 to $90, spokesman Richard Wilson said. That move would have to be passed by the independent Tasmanian Economic Regulator.

In NSW, prices were already set to rise on July 1, but EnergyAustralia has applied to the pricing regulator for a further $56-a-year increase related to the cost of the changes to the RET. The pricing regulator's final decision is due after the NSW election.

The situation has prompted the states to call for further cuts to the federal solar credits multiplier, which gives householders a subsidy of about $6200 now but will be scaled back to $5000 from July 1. The multiplier will be phased out by July 1, 2014.

A spokesman for Queensland's Energy and Water Utilities Minister Stephen Robertson said the state was calling on the commonwealth to reconsider the multiplier attached to the small-scale scheme. He said the government supported the RET but wanted it implemented in an equitable way.

Ms Bligh wrote to Ms Gillard after the regulator's draft decision in December; Mr Robertson has highlighted the letter in recent submissions to the regulator.

Western Australia's Energy Minister Peter Collier backed the push for a review. "The state government supports actions to encourage the installation of small-scale renewable energy systems but . . . the current subsidies may require review in light of recent changes to system costs," he said.

A spokeswoman for Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu said commonwealth energy policy since Labor took office in 2007 had led to uncertainty "throughout the entire electricity industry, not just renewables". "This is creating real pressure on electricity prices and hurting Victorian families," she said.

Mr O'Farrell said the Coalition's energy policy in NSW would include a solar summit "which will consider these issues". "I'm concerned about anything which puts upward pressure on electricity prices because families across NSW are already struggling to make ends meet after Labor's 60 per cent increase in power bills over the last five years," he said.

In Tasmania, Ms Giddings said her government was "a strong supporter of policies that directly assist in the development of renewable energy, however we are concerned about the costs to Tasmanian consumers as a result of the design of the RET scheme and solar policies of other states".

The states are under increasing pressure over utilities inflation. They are spending $9 billion of taxpayer funds on desalination plants, with yearly water bills in Sydney to rise by $103 between 2008 to 2012 just to bankroll the Kurnell plant.

Water bills in Perth are rising by an average of $164 a year and those in Melbourne expected to at least double over the next five years. It emerged this week that even if no water is purchased from the owners of Victoria's desalination plant, Aquasure, householders will still have to pay $19.37bn in service payments over three decades.

Labor governments have also signed contracts guaranteeing desalination plants in Sydney and Adelaide will run at or near full capacity for their first two years of operation.

"Water utilities use quite a bit of energy to transport and treat water," said Water Services Association of Australia executive director Ross Young. "With electricity prices predicted to increase, there's no doubt that the operating expenses of a water utility are also going to increase. That has to be passed on."

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