Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Production of documents

Energy policy

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (10:25): I am pleased to move:

That this house:

(1) notes:

(a) the rising energy bills encountered by Victorian households and businesses, with supply and usage charges increasing further from 1 August 2025;

(b) the cost of major infrastructure blowouts, such as the Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector West, to be pushed onto the energy bills of Victorian households and businesses;

(2) in accordance with standing order 10.01, requires the Leader of the Government to table in the Council, within three weeks of the house agreeing to this resolution, copies of any briefs in the last 12 months concerning the costs of energy including electricity and gas, and the impact of these energy costs on families and businesses provided by the:

(a) Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action to the Minister for Energy and Resources;

(b) Department of Premier and Cabinet to the Premier; and

(c) Department of Treasury and Finance to the Treasurer.

This is a very straightforward documents motion. We know that this is a serious problem for households and businesses. We know that the increases that people are facing are very significant. They are impacting heavily on family budgets, and people are struggling with these costs. Is the government concerned enough to have briefs coming from the department to relevant ministers – the energy minister, the Treasurer and the Premier? Are those briefs thoughtful in the way they operate and thoughtful and honest in the way they are laying out the costs? Do the ministers fully understand what is going on here and what is being confronted by small businesses and households?

This documents motion is in the public interest. It is an important motion because it seeks to get to the bottom of what the ministers themselves knew and know about these increases. We know that Treasurer Pallas, for example, was provided with briefs on energy routinely. I have a number of those. We also know that the minister for energy has previously been provided with briefs on a number of these key points.

This only seeks them for the last 12 months, so clearly a very defined list of documents. The ministerial briefs are easily located for each of the three ministers and easily vetted to see if there is any reason they should not be provided. I cannot imagine what those reasons would be, but this government has not got a good record on providing documents in this way, and we will no doubt have a further discussion about that later in the day.

Jaclyn Symes: It should have been for regional development. I can give you all the Solstice stuff so you can correct that from yesterday.

David DAVIS: Would you like to modify it? I am happy to add that, by leave – the documents provided by Regional Development Victoria to the Minister for Regional Development as a fourth item. We are happy to see that.

Jaclyn Symes: If they will let me hand that over, I am more than happy to give you that.

David DAVIS: I cannot imagine why they would not. We are happy to have that. If, by leave, the government is prepared to make that modification, I am certainly prepared to do so.

Jaclyn Symes: You only had to ask. I will just add it. It is all right.

David DAVIS: Are you happy or not to make the modification?

Jaclyn Symes: Will you commit to reading out the information that corrects what you said yesterday?

David DAVIS: Sorry? I am happy to point to –

The PRESIDENT: Order! It is all getting a bit loose.

David DAVIS: I notice that in the questions around Solstice Energy –

The PRESIDENT: Mr Davis, I think you hit the nail on the head about anticipating the next motion – or two motions away.

David DAVIS: President, as you know, I am merely responding to the interjections and taking up the suggestions that are made. I am very happy to make that modification if others are happy to make the modification by leave.

The point I want to make here is that this is actually very impactful on families and very impactful on small businesses. Victoria is losing significant business now because energy costs have surged. We know the minister for energy promised that the costs would go down, down, but actually the costs for gas and the costs for electricity have gone up, up, up. They are still going up, and they went up further on 1 August. People – families and businesses – are being thumped by these huge surges in costs. People have a right to see what the ministers knew and what actions the ministers might have taken or were advised to take and perhaps did not take. But either way, we know the impact is there. Families are doing it very tough, budgets are very tight and these energy costs are hugely impactful.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:30): I rise to speak on motion 1021 put forward by Mr Davis relating to documents in the energy sector and regarding briefs to government. I acknowledge that the Treasurer has already graciously offered to expand that to consider other portfolios that might be relevant as well –

David Davis: Only one. Be precise.

Michael GALEA: One extra portfolio. In the spirit of that, I acknowledge that the government will not be opposing today’s motion.

It is always a good opportunity to come and speak about the energy portfolio and the investments that are being made. Yesterday Mr Davis informed Victorians that he is not necessarily knowledgeable on Snoop Dogg. It seems that he is not necessarily knowledgeable on energy prices either, because Mr Davis failed to mention in his remarks that Victoria actually has and continues to have the lowest wholesale energy prices in Australia. What are those prices? In Tasmania the volume-weighted average per megawatt hour is $96.45. In Queensland it is $97.77. In New South Wales it is $102.39, in WA it is $108.52 and in South Australia it is $110.56. What is the figure in Victoria? It is the lowest of all six states: $88.10. We are the lowest by some measure – 14 per cent lower in fact than New South Wales and a great deal lower than states such as Western Australia and South Australia. I think that is an important thing to acknowledge. This is a government that is committed to keeping power prices down and manageable for Victorians, and you can see that through four rounds of the power saving bonus, with an additional round that will be coming in very soon for eligible concession card holders – an additional saving directly for those people to benefit on their power bills. But you can also see it through the investment in renewable energy and in the reintroduction of the SEC.

Mrs McArthur, you have already started laughing, which just goes to show how backwards the Liberal and National parties are when it comes to providing renewable energy solutions that are actually cheaper than conventional forms, and I include the fact that those opposite continue to advocate for nuclear energy, the most expensive form of power. You only need look at the UK, where they have got an established nuclear industry – no costs involved in setting up a new industry from scratch – but to build a new power station in Somerset the cost is already exceeding A$70 billion, and that is in a country with an existing nuclear industry. The coalition wants to do that here and cannot explain to the Australian people – never mind explaining where these nuclear plants are supposedly going to go – how these costs will be met, because we know that those costs will be met by working Victorians in their power bills.

This government is focused on renewable energy solutions that are cheaper, that are cleaner and that are going to provide more energy security and stability for Victorians in the long run. The projects which these documents refer to go towards that as well, and they go towards continuing that investment and continuing the incredible strength we saw in the previous year, when 38 per cent of Victoria’s energy came from renewable sources. In a state that was so heavily reliant on coal – more than any other – that is a significant achievement, and it is one that only encourages us to keep going further and to keep doing what we can to not only reduce Victoria’s greenhouse emissions but provide energy security and jobs in the renewable energy sector to Victorians right across this state. I affirm that the government will not be opposing the motion today, but I do remind Mr Davis that he failed to mention that Victoria continues to have Australia’s lowest wholesale energy prices.

We have direct measures such as the power saving bonus and also the investments in renewable energy. Indeed, going back quite some time, this government doubled the wrongful disconnection payment. We did see, under the previous coalition government, the number of disconnections double. That has been arrested under this government thanks in large part to a doubling of the wrongful disconnection payment from $250 to $500.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:35): It is always a pleasure to rise to speak on one of Mr Davis’s short-form documents motions, and today’s adventure is on energy prices. Obviously, Mr Davis, in seeking to find documents about energy prices here in Victoria, as my colleague Mr Galea has said, is choosing to ignore the fact that Victoria has some of the lowest energy prices in the nation thanks to the reforms and investments that the state Labor government has been making in technology that is helping to bring down energy costs for Victorians. It is helping to lower pressure on otherwise rising energy prices. The Victorian Labor government has a track record of providing direct support to help consumers with their energy bills. We did it repeatedly through our power saving bonus. We have got another round of that power saving bonus for those who need it most rolling out very shortly. We should also note that another Labor government, the federal Labor government, through its energy bill relief, has been providing cost-of-living support, particularly on energy bills, to all Australians and particularly all Victorians. So what we have got, quite clearly, is a topic where Labor is providing support to help keep energy costs lower. That is what Labor does. State level, federal level – Labor provides cost-of-living support to help with rising energy costs.

What we also do is ensure that the support and investments that we are making are helping to deliver lower energy costs than other states have, and we invest in technology to generate electricity that is provided at the lowest possible cost. Victoria’s benchmark retail power price, the Victorian default offer, is much lower than the default price in other states. For Victorian households the 2025–26 default offer is $431 a year, 21 per cent cheaper than the average default market offer across South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. Victoria’s default offer is 21 per cent cheaper than the default market offer across South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland, and that is for households. For small businesses the 2025–26 Victorian default offer is $1542 per year, 30 per cent cheaper than the average default market offer in South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. That is not an accident, it is by design, because the way Victoria and the Victorian Labor government have been choosing to invest in renewable technologies and also the structure of our market means that we have a default offer system that delivers real savings for households and small businesses.

The other point to make, and I do not have a lot of time, is that not only are we providing a market that is delivering lower costs to Victorians than exist in other states, not only are we providing cost-of-living support, direct support, to energy consumers through bill relief, but we are also investing for the future in the lowest cost forms of energy generation. The latest GenCost report from the CSIRO was released on 29 July this year. The first key point:

The report found renewables remain the lowest-cost new-build electricity generation technology, while nuclear small modular reactors … are the most costly.

It is a big report, but I think that sentence sums up the contrast pretty clearly between Labor and the Liberals. Labor backs renewables, the lowest cost technology for electricity generation, placing downward pressure on electricity prices. The Liberals back the highest cost form of new electricity generation. So if that is what Mr Davis is interested in, if he wants to know what is going to drive up power prices for Victorians, it is the policies of the Liberal Party.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:41): I rise to speak on Mr Davis’s motion 1021. Victoria’s economy operates somewhat differently to other economies in Australia. We are not Western Australia; we do not get to dig copious amounts of ore out of the ground and earn our way that way. We as a state built our wealth on manufacturing and added value, and a key part of that was of course that we had plentiful and cheap energy supplies to underpin that. Today of course, in the last 10 years, Victoria’s productivity has lagged that of the rest of Australia. As a state, we can measure our competitiveness, by some degree, by our trade deficit. We have a trade deficit of $92 billion, which suggests the state is deeply uncompetitive. Of course, energy costs have a significant part in that competitiveness. It is quite clear that in addition to levies and other costs and burdens put onto business in Victoria, the impact of energy policy is yet another knife through the heart of our competitiveness and the ability of businesses to succeed, employ and expand. It is another cut out of their cash flow and the working capital that allows them to employ and allows them to innovate and add to our productivity. It is absolutely essential that Victorians understand where this policy is going. When we have blowouts on infrastructure costs that are absolutely critical to the deployment of renewables and when the cost of that is going to be passed on to businesses and to households who can least afford it, we should have transparency on where that policy is going, where it is going to lead the state and what is going to happen. This documents motions is, as Mr Davis would say, a straightforward, simple thing to understand: what are the deliberations, what are we signing up to and what will be the cost to businesses going forward?

Motion agreed to.