Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. How many Australians received the $275 reduction in their energy bill that Labor promised by the end of last year?

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Nicholls for his question. I say 218,000 Australian families have reduced their energy bills to very close to zero, or are now getting a rebate, because of the Albanese government's cheaper home batteries policy, and every single Australian saw wholesale prices fall by 44 per cent in the last quarter of last year. We have more work to do to make sure that flows through to retail prices, and we intend to keep that work up.

The member for Hume promised that wholesale prices would be $70 a megawatt hour; they were $341 when he left office in 2022. That's the track record of the member for Hume. And in Victoria, the wholesale price of electricity in May 2022 was $233 a megawatt hour. Today, it is $37 a megawatt hour.