Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Hume for her question and her absolute commitment to ensuring that Australian households and businesses have the lowest electricity prices possible, which is the driving intention of the Turnbull government and has been for the last couple of years, as we have worked through reform after reform to drive down energy prices. Today, we announced a series of further reforms to further drive down energy prices.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released its Retail Electricity Pricing Inquiry report in July. They announced and made very clear that the national energy market is not operating in the best interests of Australian consumers and that reform is urgently needed. That's why, today, the Turnbull government has announced that it is going to act on a number of those recommendations. Consistent with recommendations 30 and 49 of the report, the ACCC and the Australian Energy Regulator will begin work on calculating a default price for households and small to medium-sized businesses to replace the current non-price-regulated jurisdictions.

The ACCC found that a significant gap between standing offer prices and market offer prices has become excessive and that consumers have not been seeking the better deals. The default offer will provide additional protection that, for average consumers, could be in the range of $183 to $416. These are real potential savings, which could be between $561 and upwards of $1,400, to households and medium-sized businesses,. The government will also be accepting the ACCC's recommendation to implement a program to underwrite new, stable, low-cost, dispatchable generation for commercial and industrial consumers, ensuring that that's a technology-neutral program as recommended by the ACCC, giving further action to build on our already successful reforms that are already driving down prices.