Tuesday, 10 September 2024

Southern Metropolitan Region

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (12:55): (1099) I want to raise an issue for the Minister for Energy and Resources, and it concerns the $300 rebate program that is a joint federal–state program. People certainly need that support at the moment. They are doing it tough, with cost of living and with surging electricity costs. Mike Soccio has written to me. He has two properties that he pays the electricity bill for. One is for the one he lives in in Daylesford – not in my electorate – and he pays also for one at Harp Road in Kew, which is his mother’s house. So he is a very decent son: he not only pays the bill for the house where he lives with his father but pays his mother’s electricity bill, and they are coalesced into one bill. But he only gets one rebate, despite paying two bills and being generous enough to pay for his mother. He has been told that the model cannot be changed, with the grandfathering that applies here. I am asking: will the minister reconsider this and remove this harshness to Mr Soccio, a generous man?