Everyday Australians will fork out a combined $2.5 billion to keep the lights on at Tomago Aluminum beyond the end of its current coal-fired generation contract.

The announcement will be welcome news for employees of the smelter and those employed by the hundreds of businesses that rely on the smelter every day.

Hunter based Nationals Senator for New South Wales, Ross Cadell, described the deal as “a ridiculous waste of taxpayers’ money”, calling it out the hypocrisy of the current Labor government’s energy policies.

“While keeping the doors open at Tomago is crucial to the Hunter economy, we should never have arrived at a point where taxpayers are on the hook for someone else’s power bill,” Cadell said.

“You should never praise someone stopping and giving you first aid after they have assaulted you. But that is what has happened in this case.

“We’re giving $5 billion in bailouts across Australia to a big company in Rio Tinto because we’ve ruined the electricity grid.

“This could have been avoided. Instead, Labor has remained fixated on a green ideology that has decimated Australian industry.

“Pretending the economy can run on fairy dust has forced up power prices, made reliability a nice to have rather than a must have, and left businesses guessing whether they can survive.

“This announcement is not fixing the energy policy, it is just pasting over it.

“The positive here is that tonight thousands of workers go home knowing they will have employment beyond the end of Tomago’s power contract.

“The negative is that each and every one of us is funding it.

“Make no mistake. The Australian taxpayer is once again funding Labor’s failures.”