Our proposed long-term lease of 49 per cent of the State’s electricity network businesses will keep downward pressure on electricity prices through ongoing price regulation and applying strict conditions to the transaction.

These conditions include a guaranteed discount on electricity network prices by one per cent off the forecast regulated prices until 2019, and that the transaction will have no adverse impact on electricity reliability.

Network prices will continue to be subject to regulation by the Australian Energy Regulator and standards such as reliability and safety will continue to be enforced through licences.

An independent report prepared by Ernst & Young has confirmed NSW households have been paying significantly more in network costs than customers in Victoria and South Australia since those states privatised their assets in the 1990s.

Ernst & Young found that while costs in Victoria and South Australia had fallen in real terms, NSW network costs had risen by 122 per cent.