Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer: Last budget, the government promised to support small businesses to save on energy bills with electrification incentives and an instant asset write-off. You also promised to help households save on energy costs with a household upgrade fund. Neither of these policies have yet delivered a single dollar to a single household or small business. With the next budget now coming, what will you do to make sure incentives flow to households and small businesses to help them electrify and save on energy costs?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Warringah for her question and for her interest in this. This is obviously a key concern that the government shares. Part of the legislation that you refer to is before the Senate at the moment, and we want to see the Senate pass it because we want to back in small businesses and households when it comes to electrifying and getting their power bills down where they can. We have shown a willingness—and I pay tribute to the Minister for Housing, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, and others, including Senator McAllister in the other place—for putting together what we think is a good combination of policy initiatives to help people do just that. We want to give people the choice to electrify if they can. We want to make it more affordable—that's the motivation behind the legislation in the Senate—and we want to continue to work with the member for Warringah and others who want to see small businesses and families pay less on their power bills.