The call came after nearly 100 farmers, councillors and business people met in Warrnambool on Monday night to discuss how high energy prices and reliability fears were impacting on their businesses.

The United Dairyfarmers of Victoria (UDV) Wannon branch hosted the meeting and has vowed to keep up pressure on governments.

UDV Wannon branch president Bruce Knowles said Australia’s power costs had gone from the cheapest to most expensive in the world in just 15 years.

“This is a disaster for the economy and it looks like going from bad to worse,” Mr Knowles said.

Dairy farmers were being forced to buy generators to not only get reliable power but because they were becoming more cost effective, he said.

Mr Knowles said the UDV wanted governments and power infrastructure owners to provide equitable services for the region.

“Poles and wire infrastructure in the south west is not in good shape but to survive we need affordable cheap electricity and modern, reliable infrastructure and accessibility to three-phase power,” he said.

Grassmere dairy farmer Basil Ryan, who moved the resolution, said the meeting had heard how the region was coping with “third world” power supplies.

“It’s important to keep the momentum going to fix this,” Mr Ryan said.

Farmers were warned they could be paying an extra $3760 on their average $18,800 power bills this year and they might also have to foot the bill for processors’ higher energy costs, likely to lead to lower farmgate milk prices.

Claire Miller from Dairy Australia told the meeting the current situation was the result of a “perfect storm” of policy failures over the past 10-15 years.

Ms Miller said there were no “short-term silver bullets” but there could be opportunities for government and market-based interventions, and farmers could undertake energy efficiency initiatives.

They should ensure they were on a business tariff,  not a residential household tariff, and shop around for a better energy deal, she said.

There were also state and federal grant programs that funded energy efficiency audit programs for businesses and identified replacement equipment that could save energy, Ms Miller said.

But the top priority was to get a national energy market that worked in the interests of consumers.

“The government still has a lot of work to do but it needs a bipartisan approach,” Ms Miller said.