Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a fitting move, from a party that is rapidly sliding into national obscurity, to bring such an obsolete bill to this chamber. Senator Rennick wants to talk about paper shuffling; well, this bill is little more than that. It shows a complete lack of understanding about how prices are regulated and whose job it already is to report on electricity prices. Senator Duniam's private senator's bill, the Productivity Commission Amendment (Electricity Reporting) Bill 2023, is a weak swipe from the coalition in a redundant attempt to seek legitimacy in a conversation about electricity prices that outstripped them years and years ago. They have been missing in action for a decade on these issues. Instead of a meaningful contribution to the debate about electricity prices, about energy generation or about our electricity grid, what we get in their contribution is absolutely pathetic. It requires the Productivity Commission to table a report on electricity prices for each state. The ACCC already collects this data. This is indeed a pointless piece of legislation before us. There are already multiple avenues for ascertaining energy prices across the nation.

I would have expected those opposite to be capable of grasping this fact. It is little wonder, frankly, that Labor was left with the mess that it was if those opposite are unaware of such basic facts of market management in Australia. The ACCC already reports on and monitors not only electricity prices but profits and margins in the national electricity market every six months. The bill also completely overlooks the fact that, in my home state of Western Australia, for example, prices are fixed and set by government. The opposition are somehow in the dark about the fact that the Australian Energy Regulator already produces a state of the energy market report, a quarterly retail energy market performance update and a wholesale market report. What is the point of this bill? Well, this bill has no point. It is a desperate and shallow attempt at legitimacy in a policy debate in which you have been missing in action for a decade. Instead of a meaningful contribution, what do we get? We merely get paper shuffling and duplication of government resources, with yet another electricity market report.

You opposite were part of a government that aggressively hid all the energy price rises from the Australian public in the lead-up to the last election. You hid the prospect of significant energy price rises that were forecast by the energy market regulator in the lead-up to the election. It is hypocrisy to the nth degree to now bring forward a bill that talks about transparency in market pricing. You didn't allow Australian families to prepare for or understand what was going on in electricity markets; you just tried to hoodwink Australians into voting again for a government that mismanaged Australia's energy needs every single step of the way. Not only do we already have systems for providing information but you are, in this legislation before us, needlessly gilding the lily, while also totally barking up the wrong tree.

The Productivity Commission should not be given this kind of job, in any case. Their function is focused on economic and policy research, not on monitoring markets. That job already rests with the ACCC—which they already do—and, indeed, with the Australian Energy Regulator, the very organisation that you had cover up the electricity price increases in the lead-up to the last election. Perhaps that's why you didn't want to give the AER this job, because you didn't want to draw attention to the fact that you had this great cover-up happening. Didn't you learn from your former leader's illustrious and bizarre multiple-ministries debacle? When people take on roles that aren't a good fit and that they're not equipped for, it never ends well.

Our government, the Labor government, is not distracted by money-wasting, duplicating data-gathering. We are focused on the significant toll that the cost of living is having on Australians. We're worried about the effect of energy bills and the burden they place on a significant cohort of Australians. We're concerned about businesses, households, homeowners, renters and social housing residents—everyone who lives in our great nation—which is why we took urgent action to shield Australian families and businesses from the worst of global energy price spikes. It's why we put forward our energy relief plan, a plan that limits gas prices and coal prices and provides energy relief for households and businesses. It's why we're doing the hard yards with the states to put in practical measures, including in states like WA, where electricity prices are already controlled via the fact that electricity generation and the grid is still owned by state owned enterprises. Even then we've got the flexibility to adapt and put in measures to make these things work.

We're committed to partnering with the states and territories to deliver targeted and temporary relief on power bills. It is also why we're partnering to deliver $3 billion worth of electricity bill relief for eligible households and small businesses. From July this year we are delivering on our plan to deliver up to $500 relief in electricity bills for eligible households and $650 for eligible small businesses. We're getting the states to pitch in too because the more we work together, the bigger the difference we can make, which is why we have made this a matching program, with states and territories being asked to match this funding on a dollar-for-dollar basis. This provides hundreds of dollars of additional bill relief for eligible Australian families right around the country.

We are also investing in cheaper, cleaner and more reliable energy for the future. We are investing more than $1.6 billion in helping businesses and households, including energy relief and support in social housing. We're working to make energy performance upgrades to social housing. We are putting an energy investment in social housing that is expected to cut the energy demand and needs of some 60,000 social housing properties. This is to cut their energy use and bills by one-third, which is incredibly significant for low-income households in social housing.

We've got access energy savings and upgrades through our 'save energy, save on energy bills' package, including $1.6 billion to relieve cost-of-living pressures by making energy performance upgrades more accessible and affordable and $310 million for the small business energy initiative to give small business and medium business an additional 20 per cent deduction on spending that supports electrification and more efficient use of energy. It's these kinds of things—for example, enabling a tax deduction to draw down more quickly so you can make more efficient investments to get that transformative change happening sooner—that really help small business drive down expenses and costs as well as, really importantly, reduce emissions.