Wednesday, 27 August 2025

Energy policy

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (18:55): (1889) We face a very significant moment in the state where gas and energy prices have been surging upwards and upwards and upwards. Electricity costs have gone up massively, with all the costs going up for domestic consumers from 1 August. People will have got the letters in the mail. So the concern I have – and this is a matter for the attention of the Minister for Energy and Resources – is that the costs are being loaded up and up and up. The government is seeking, through a bill coming to this chamber tomorrow, to add even more costs. We saw the work that has been done by Bruce Mountain from the Victoria Energy Policy Centre – very important work costing matters out from the Australian Energy Market Operator figures and showing very conclusively that the costs are not as AEMO has laid them out. We know, for example, with VNI West there is a massive cost increase, going from $3.2 billion to $7.6 billion and with a likely range of up to 50 per cent more than that figure, which would take it to $11.4 billion just on one project, but the Mountain figures make it very clear that the cost could easily be in the order of $28 billion.

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, I will tell you who will pay for it: every cent of that will be sheeted home to Victorians. Every cent of it will be paid for by small businesses and households. So what I am asking the minister to do is to publish on a website, visibly to every member of the community, who will pay for all of these matters.

The key point here is that massive, massive increases are already occurring for households in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. But with the forthcoming costs, if you amortise those costs across every household and every business in the state, with businesses paying in some cases on his estimates up to 300 per cent more and households paying up to 50 per cent more and perhaps even greater than that, what I think is required is for the minister to come clean and tell us the figure. What does her department calculate will be the cost of all of these projects in the bills of Victorians? How much will it be per year? Will it be $500 extra? Will it be $1000 extra? Will it be $2000 extra? Will it be $5000 extra? Victorians are going to pay through the nose, and the minister for energy needs to come clean.