Tuesday, 29 August 2023

Power saving bonus

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:29): (427) My adjournment is to the Minister for Energy, and the action I seek is for the minister to write to me and explain why the government set out the $250 power saving bonus scheme the way it did. It is now apparent that what many of us suspected in relation to the government’s $250 power saving bonus is actually true – that is, it was always just an enormous data-harvesting exercise by the government. I say that because my office was recently contacted by a constituent who advised that he answered a call on his mobile telephone and the call was in fact a robocall from his local Labor MP’s office. As this constituent had never given his mobile number out to this MP but had recently noted it on his $250 energy rebate application, it is now very clear what this government is up to.

The way the entire program has been structured is completely inefficient and cumbersome. Why didn’t the government just give a lump sum of money to the electricity suppliers and get them to credit each customer’s bill with $250? This would have saved a huge amount of stress, particularly for older Victorians who have been struggling to make the claims. It also would have been by far the most efficient and effective way of redistributing this taxpayer-funded largesse. But, no, this sneaky government structured it this way so they could capture the contact data of millions of unsuspecting Victorians and in turn use this data for party-political purposes, as this constituent found out recently. This is disgraceful behaviour from a government that will do anything to help itself stay in power, and I look forward to hearing from the minister regarding this important issue.