Barnett's heated cooling debate

Honest or crazy brave? That's the question West Australians are asking of their premier Colin Barnett after he told his constituents most of them don't really need air-conditioning in Perth and its environs.

Talk-back radio and other social media have been flooded with people with a view on the subject, few of them clapping vigorously, perhaps because the WA capital has just had its hottest October in four decades and its warmest November for about a century.

A wealthier population, per kind favour of the minerals boom and less expensive cooling equipment, has made the West's demand for air-conditioning take off in the past decade. In the south-west interconnected system, which covers the most populated part of the sprawling state, overall demand has risen by five per cent a year.

At the end of the past century just 47 per cent of south-west WA homes had air-conditioning. Now it is 92 per cent – and the energy spikes between 4pm and 9pm, as families return home from school or work, are going up at a rate of knots.

West Australians are now probably the largest consumers of electricity per capita in the country, although the sweaty citizens of south-east Queensland are in the running too.

Heating and cooling (and mostly the latter) now account for 26 per cent of an average West Australian family's household bill, second only to water heating (32 per cent).

At the start of the past decade WA's summer peak load requirement was 2,473 megawatts. It is expected to pass 4,000 MW this summer and hit 6,500 MW by the start of the next decade. The government-owned Western Power networks business has plans to invest about $3 billion in development of its system in the next four years, a fair bit of that needed for days of extreme weather and, because it is there, days when being a bit cooler is hard to resist.

The previous state Labor government played the populist card and avoided putting up residential power bills as far as possible. Barnett's government, on coming to office, got told by its energy advisers that an increase north of 75 per cent was really needed to make bills cost-reflective, but it has opted to start with a 26 per cent increase. Another 15 per cent or so is round the corner for consumers.

All of which gave Opposition leader Eric Ripper the chance to ask Barnett in state parliament if he understood that householders will be paying $270 per room for split-system air-conditioners this summer. Whereupon Barnett informed his Perth and Fremantle voters that he didn't have air-conditioning at home and most of them didn't need it "in our Mediterranean climate.”

He later acknowledged on radio that air-conditioning is essential for the elderly, the sick and homes with young children, but by then the talk-back bulls were running.

Barnett lives in Claremont, five minutes brisk walk from the sea, with the so-called "Fremantle Doctor” – a cooling afternoon sea breeze – literally on his doorstep, and works in air-conditioned offices and a parliament air-conditioned at a cost of $660,000 by general MP agreement a few years ago. "And comes to work in an air-conditioned car, too,” growled some of vox populi.

One of the multitude of respondents in the media snarled: "Colin has had another brain fade. He will regret this one.” Others of greener persuasions gave him a cheer or two, but they seemed rather out-weighed by the rest, including the bloke who shot back: "When will politicians realise that when you start preaching to us, especially when you are not concerned about how you are going to pay your next electricity bill, you have lost connection to the electorate?”

Could some of the media types in Sydney and Brisbane please ask Anna Bligh and Kristina Keneally if they agree with Colin? And Julia Gillard? Why should the sandgropers have all the fun?

Keith Orchison, director of consultancy Coolibah Pty Ltd and editor of Powering Australia yearbook, was chief executive of two national energy associations from 1980 to 2003. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to the energy industry in 2004.