Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People in Melbourne as well as many people right around the country are feeling the pinch of higher electricity bills. If you ever want any evidence that the system is broken and that governments just do whatever big corporations say, you need look no further than your own electricity bill. In Victoria, where we have had deregulation the longest, electricity retailers are now twice as profitable as they used to be. They are making, on average, 13 per cent profit compared with six per cent when it was regulated. When you look at what people are paying in those states across Australia where electricity prices are deregulated, in South Australia, in New South Wales, in Victoria, in South-East Queensland, you find they are paying more than people pay in the UK, more than they pay across the European Union, and a big part of it—a big part—is that the retailers have been let off the leash and allowed to charge whatever they want. In the ACT, if you are on the cheapest power bill, a typical household will pay $1,325 in 2016. Cross the border into unregulated, Liberal-run New South Wales and your power bill could go up to $3,430—the same amount of electrons, the same amount of electricity, and for a typical household you could be paying up to two or three times as much.

These power companies are now making in the order of $2 billion a year in profit. These are not the companies generating the power; they are not the ones in charge of the poles and wires getting it to our households. These are just the retailers sitting on the end who are creaming huge amounts of profit off and as a result people are paying hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars more than other people in Australia where their state or territory governments have regulated power prices. It's all well and good for the Prime Minister to talk publicly about putting these companies to the sword, but then he brings them in, in private, and flogs them with a wet lettuce. There is one thing this government could do that would make a difference, and that is take the lead from the ACT, take the lead from Tasmania, step in and reregulate power prices, because it is time to admit that deregulation has failed. Deregulation has failed—you see it in your power bills in Victoria, you see it in your power bills in New South Wales and you see it in South Australia.

For those who say it's all about renewable energy, well renewable energy charges might make up about seven-odd percent of your bill but in Victoria retailers' profits alone can make up up to 30 per cent of your power bill. Why are people paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars just so that these big retailers can make profits? Bring back pricing under public control. The Greens are prepared to stand up to these big companies. Enough talk from the Prime Minister—give the power companies until the end of the year to reregulate their prices and if not step in and do it yourself.