Thursday, 26 May 2022

Energy policy

Mr ONDARCHIE (Northern Metropolitan) (18:49): (1949) My adjournment debate is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change in the other place. The good people of Victoria started 2022 staring down the barrel of a 141 per cent increase in wholesale electricity prices and a 77 per cent increase in gas wholesale prices, which are now being passed on to consumers. I am sure people like Jason McClintock in Eltham and Briony Hutton in Hastings clearly know that their residents are annoyed at the price increases for electricity and gas in their particular areas. Last month’s state budget provided very short term relief with a $250 power bonus—68 cents a day—but the budget did absolutely nothing to stabilise long-term gas and electricity prices, which are predicted to continue to rise under eight years of Labor’s mismanagement. The Treasurer in his budget reply speech stated:

Some said our strategies would increase power prices! How wrong they were.

I would recommend the minister and the Treasurer talk to some of the residents across Victoria in my electorate, in Hastings and in Eltham, because they will not tell you how low energy prices are; they will say that gas and electricity prices are going up, forcing them to make sacrifices in other areas of cost-of-living pressures in their family homes.

Victorians are struggling. They want certainty, and the minister only ever offers excuses. The minister always has a plan for a plan, but the Victorian public are never allowed to see it. Therefore with bills for all Victorians expected to rise again on 1 July this year I am calling on the minister, and the action I seek is for the minister to immediately release the gas substitution road map and the renewable energy zone consultation paper so that all Victorians can see the government actually has a plan to lower prices.