Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

When Senator Dastyari says 'other than competition', he dismisses an important driver of making sure that businesses across Australia charge the lowest possible price for the best possible product. Of course, competitive tensions are what bring out the best possible value for consumers in a free market. Senator Dastyari was not in the chamber when I pointed this out. There have already been statements from all the relevant regulators of electricity prices that electricity prices will go down as a result of scrapping the carbon tax. The Office of the Tasmanian Economic Regulator stated on 19 June that there would be a real fall in electricity prices of 7.8 per cent with the removal of the carbon tax. The Queensland Competition Authority said that electricity prices would fall by 8.5 per cent in typical household electricity bills as result of the removal of the carbon tax. The ACT Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission said electricity prices would fall by 11.6 per cent without the carbon tax. The New South Wales Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal said gas prices would fall by up to 9.2 per cent without the carbon tax and so on and so on. AGL, a private energy supplier, in their release on 23 June 2014, said:

… price reductions will flow through to residential and small business customers, if the carbon repeal legislation is passed by the Federal Parliament.

So it goes on. There are statements galore. Clare Savage, Group Executive Manager, Strategy and Corporate Affairs, EnergyAustralia, said:

Once the Federal Government stops collecting the tax from us, we'll then ensure those savings are passed on to our customers. If the Federal Government backdates the repeal to July 1, we will abide by that. That is our guarantee.

And so on. There is absolutely no evidence that the cost savings from scrapping the carbon tax will not be passed on.

Having said that, with an abundance of caution to ensure that there are appropriate safeguards, the government has already put provisions into the legislation—and we have canvassed them in some detail—to ensure compliance with passing on these cost savings, by energy suppliers in particular. As a result of the constructive discussions that we had with the Palmer United Party, we have now gone even further. I confirm again what I said previously to Senator Milne—that the definition of 'electricity retailer' for the purposes of this is limited to electricity retailers and electricity producers selling electricity into wholesale electricity markets to a retailer. That is a very important qualification.