Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

Some of our cost-of-living relief is broad based and some of it is targeted. So our tax cuts are for every taxpayer; our energy bill relief is for every household. Our focus has been on people who are doing it tough, particularly those on concessions, and that's why you see, with medicines and rent assistance, that they particularly target those households. But the most efficient and effective way to deliver energy bill relief above the concessions threshold, for a short period of time, over the next calendar year, is to apply it to every household.

Now, our focus is on those households that are on the concessions, on fixed incomes, and those in Middle Australia. We make no secret of that. But the most efficient and effective way to deliver this program through the states and territories and through electricity retailers is to make the program broad based. Every household will receive that assistance, and it recognises that the cost-of-living pressures are up and down the income threshold.