Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Reid for his question. In a speech last night, the Prime Minister outlined a number of reasons for the increases in the price of electricity over the last few years which have impacted of course on households. Principal amongst those reasons has been the need for significant investment in our network infrastructure—that being the more 850,000 kilometres of poles and wires which deliver electricity across the country. The House will be interested to learn that it is now estimated that $42 billion of network investment will be required over the next five years just to maintain reliable electricity supply and to meet growing demand for electricity. This is the main driver of the higher electricity prices that households are now facing.

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