Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Macdonald, who has always been very action oriented when it comes to policies to put downward pressure on electricity prices across Australia, particularly in his home state of Queensland. Indeed, the Turnbull government has been delivering comprehensive reform to put short-term downward pressure on electricity prices and, indeed, long-term downward pressure on electricity prices.

We delivered reform in terms of the way gas markets operate that have seen the spot price in relation to gas reduced thanks to the Prime Minister's direct intervention into those markets—not only reduction in prices but also an increase in supply, helping to feed that reduction in prices and guaranteeing there is more affordable gas in the market in the future. Intervention, in terms of the retail market, has seen big retailers give almost two million Australians more information to choose better energy plans. Indeed, half a million Australians have visited the government's Energy Made Easy website. As an example, a Brisbane household has reported making changes worth some $630 a year as a result of advice provided by the government to them as to how they can best access cheaper electricity prices into the future.

But it doesn't stop there. Through our National Energy Guarantee there are longer term downward pressures that will play out in the energy market; estimates of bringing wholesale prices down by some 20 to 25 per cent, relative to what they would otherwise be; savings of, potentially, $5 million for an energy-intensive industrial user; or, of course, our reform to the limited merits review, changing the way in which those poles-and-wires network distributors work. In the Queensland case that is critical, because we know that the Palaszczuk Labor government has been ripping off energy users in their home state by dragging money out of their energy network systems and abusing this process. We have now put a roadblock to that occurring in the future.