Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Productivity Commission Amendment (Electricity Reporting) Bill 2023 should be a no-brainer. It really should be a no-brainer and it should actually receive support from all sides of the chamber. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why Australian customers should not be able to access a single point of truth with respect to electricity prices in the current environment. There is absolutely no reason.

The Productivity Commission is well placed to undertake this task. Something very similar is done with respect to petrol prices, and I commend all those at the ACCC who undertake that work with respect to petrol prices. The Productivity Commission also looks at petrol prices. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why the Productivity Commission can't undertake this task to make sure there's a single point of truth with respect to electricity prices. We should make it as simple as possible for Australians to access key information with respect to one of their major cost-of-living items. We should make it as simple as possible for them, and that's what this bill does.

I want to provide some commentary with respect to the context of this debate. It appears that every time you open a newspaper you see more and more bad news with respect to the cost of electricity. I want to walk through a number of articles that have appeared in my home state's lead newspaper the Courier Mail. On 25 May 2023 Matthew Killoran and Madura McCormack wrote an article entitled 'Price shock: QLDers hit with even higher power bill increases than expected', which reads:

Electricity prices in Queensland are set to rise by an average of $350, with a 21.5 per cent hike kicking off on July 1.

Queenslanders are set to cop an average of a $350 power price rise within weeks—almost $30 more than forecast just two months ago.

…   …   …

A Queenslander in the southeast on the default market offer, the maximum retail electricity fee, will be paying $1969 a year for their electricity—

nearly $2,000 for their electricity bill each year. It's astonishing that a country such as ours is in this place. With the abundance of energy resources available to governments at all levels, how did we get to the place where an average household is paying nearly $2,000 a year for electricity? It's astonishing.

The article said:

The AER said increased coal and gas prices, lower reliability of coal generators—

that particularly pertains to my home state of Queensland, where the Callide C generator is still in the process of being repaired—

and the closure of Liddell Power Station in NSW in April were among the reasons for the price rise.

When the coal-fired power stations are shut down, the prices go up. The prices are going up, and average Australians, average working families in Australia, are suffering as a result. It's nearly $2,000 for a household to pay their electricity bill. It's astonishing. How did we get here? How did we get to this position?

Then there is the position of small businesses. The article said:

Small businesses in southeast Queensland will be looking at an average price rise of $756, taking their annual bill to $4202.

That's over $4,000, approaching $5,000, for an average small business in south-east Queensland, an increase of $756. How much do you have to sell in terms of goods and services to make up that additional cost? How many coffees do you have to sell? How many meals do you have to sell? How many goods do you have to sell? This is at the same time as small businesses are being hit with inflationary pressures. They are copping it from every which way. Every which way they are copping it. The retail electricity customers in my home state of Queensland, in the south-east corner, are paying nearly $2,000 a year for household electricity prices. So they have less money in their pockets to spend with those small businesses that are battling the average price rise of $756. It is actually a pending disaster for the Australian economy and the wellbeing of many Australian families.

I visited a wonderful not-for-profit organisation in Ipswich, which is in the federal seat of Blair, where my office is located. I spoke to the wonderful team there at Ipswich Assist, one of the two food banks in that area. Their clear message to me was that they have been seeing a cost-of-living crisis reflected in the people coming through their door seeking access to food, toiletries and all the basic necessities of life. They are seeing people who they have never seen before, including families where there is someone in employment but they are struggling to pay the bills due to higher interest rates, higher rents, higher electricity prices and higher grocery prices. This is the cost-of-living reality at the coalface in Australian suburbs. I want to take the opportunity to congratulate Jason Budden and his team at Ipswich Assist. They're a wonderful group of volunteers and they do amazing work in our community.

But we in this place need to do our bit to do everything we can do to address this cost-of-living crisis. One of the ways in which we can do that is by considering this bill and what it seeks to do. With transparency, with the sharing of knowledge with respect to what is happening with electricity prices, comes accountability. You need the information to hold people to account. Every Australian retail electricity consumer has the right to a single point of truth with respect to what is happening with respect to prices.

I want to make a few points with respect to the bill. Before I do that, I genuinely want to compliment Senator Duniam for putting forward this private member's bill. This is what we as senators should all be doing: considering how each and every one of us can take advantage of every opportunity at our disposal to try to make the lives of the people we represent easier, not harder. I think this bill does exactly that.

At the moment there are a disparate range of sources people can access to try to find out what is happening in terms of their electricity prices. But the problem is that there isn't a single point of truth. There are the AEMC's residential electricity price trends document and AEMO's online dashboard. There are also the Australian Energy Regulator's Energy Made Easy site and the Victorian government's Victorian Energy Compare site as well as various webpages and products of organisations such as Canstar Blue, iSelect, Finder and Compare the Market. But there isn't a single source of truth—a single place where all Australian retail electricity customers can go to find out what is actually happening with respect to electricity prices. That information needs to be provided, and the Productivity Commission is the perfect vehicle to actually deliver that information and provide it in an efficient and effective way.

As I've said, this is about access to information and this is about transparency, but it's also about accountability. Before the last federal election, the then opposition leader, Mr Albanese, made the promise 97 times that Australian households' power bills would be reduced by $275 annually. That promise was made 97 times in the lead-up to the last federal election.

I come back to that article in the Courier Mail from 25 May 2023—just about the first anniversary of the election of the Albanese government—'Price shock: QLDers hit with even higher power bill increases than expected':

Queenslanders are set to cop an average of a $350 power price rise within weeks …

Instead of going down $275, it's going up $350. That's just in one year. The same is actually happening in regional Queensland. I quote an article from the Courier on 9 June 2023:

Regional Queenslanders will bear the brunt of the nation's soaring power prices following a ruling that will hike their bills almost 30 per cent. The jump follows increases of up to 25 per cent in the state's southeast …

… The rise from July 1 will add $429 a year, or 28.7 per cent for Ergon Energy customers, taking the average annual household bill to $1926 …

That's $350 a year in the south-east and $429 a year in regional Queensland. Instead of going down by $275, as was promised by the now Albanese government when Mr Albanese was in opposition, the bills are actually going up. They're going the wrong way, and this is after just one year.

I commend Senator Duniam with respect to this private senator's bill. We need to provide a single source of truth to electricity consumers. There needs to be transparency and there needs to be accountability—accountability which should be linked back to the promise that was made by Mr Albanese 97 times when he was in opposition to reduce household energy bills by $275 a year. That was the promise made. There should be a vehicle to hold the government to account with respect to its broken promise, and this private senator's bill provides exactly that.