Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I visited Ballina and Lismore at the weekend in my capacity as Special Envoy for Disaster Recovery. I met with mayors and general managers of many local councils from the Northern Rivers, plus unions and businesses and the local community, and had conversations with representatives of the First Nations people, from the Bundjalung nation.

I also heard about people who have been ripped off by Origin Energy. Origin, a company that made a profit of $318 million last year, has been charging Lismore residents for power they didn't even use. Not only did they not use that power; in some cases, their homes were actually uninhabitable and have been uninhabitable for months.

One resident, Ella, was given a quarterly power bill of $460 which included charges for water usage. Ella actually saw her hot water system float away during the floods, but was still charged for hot water usage. Ella tried to rectify the issue. She said, 'It's the chaos of it. It's been going on for months. They ring me, put me on hold. I don't have time for this. It goes on and on.' Another Lismore woman received a bill of $336 from Origin for a house that doesn't even have walls. She said, 'I haven't had the energy to fight. It's a full-time job between chasing down insurance and calling services.'

This sort of predatory corporate behaviour after disasters makes me sick to my stomach. I call on Origin to make it right, to make sure this never happens again and to make sure that those claims are rectified.