Interview with Monique Wright, Seven's Sunrise

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Well, emergency energy legislation is expected to be pushed through Parliament today, as politicians return to Canberra for a special sitting. The bill, which was only just finalised, includes price caps on gas, with the promise of a $1.5 billion relief fund for vulnerable households and small businesses. The proposal is being backed by the Greens and independent Senators, Jacqui Lambie, and David Pocock.

Joining you now is Energy Minister, Chris Bowen. Morning to you, Minister. Thanks so much for being with us. First up, when will Aussies actually see a reduction in their power bill if this passes today, and let's assume that it will.

CHRIS BOWEN: Good morning, Mon, and I'm very confident it will pass with the support of the crossbench of the Parliament, and really what we're doing here is two things: one, capping goal and gas prices, gas prices specifically today in Federal Parliament. The big part of increase comes from coal and gas being way up right around the world as a result of the war in Ukraine, and we are going to cap it, because we don't think it's right that companies make big profits off the back of the war and Australians pay the price of it. We just don't think it's right, and we're going to step in.

That will mean that the increases we would have seen next year of around 36 per cent, will be much less, and we've already seen The Australian Energy Regulator say even the government indicating we were going to do this is having an impact, so when we do it today, we will see those price rises next year be much, much less, and in addition we're putting $1.5 billion on the table to provide direct rebates to energy companies to pass on to their consumers, so that again we're taking that real pressure off Australian households, and Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer, will be working through the details with his state colleagues, working out arrangements state by state to get that money into the system so that their bills, when they arrive in the middle of next year, won't be anywhere near as high as they otherwise would have been.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Okay. Chris, can you just explain this: yesterday, you described there's a good conversation that you had with the Greens. You basically got them over the line by agreeing that government funding will assist Australians to switch out gas appliances. What does that mean? Does that mean that we're no longer going to be cooking with gas in the future?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, people obviously will always be able to make their own choices, but we've been working for a while on this thing called the National Energy Performance Strategy, and we had a good conversation with the Greens, and the Greens suggested that we deliver a package pre budget, in the lead up to the budget, which we're more than happy to do as the first dividend of that strategy, and really, it's about providing support for households and businesses to make the best energy choices for them, because electrification and energy efficiency can reduce your bills, can actually be a healthier result in your house and can be much, much more efficient, and so there's a number of ways we can do it. We can provide low interest loans through the CEFC, which we're already doing for electric cars, for example, there's lots of things we can do. It's entirely in keeping with our agenda, and that's what a good government does, works across the aisle with people of good faith to get things done where we can find agreement. That's what a mature sensible grown up government does, and that's exactly what we've done again.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Okay. So, this price relief, even you said yesterday there's no magic bullet, and you've just alluded to it then about other plans, but is there something that we should be doing at home right now to bring our power bills down?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, I think, Mon, obviously there's always things we can all be doing, including, you know, very sensible things, and trying to be as energy efficient as possible. But I do want to stress, I mean these prices are not the result or the fault of Australians; these prices are the result and the fault of Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine. We've seen prices up right around the world and governments right around the world having to deal with this. 90 per cent of the increase comes from that war in Ukraine, that's what the International Energy Agency says, plus Australia went into this crisis pretty ill prepared because over the last decade, we had four gigawatts of power leave the grid and only one gigawatt come on. So, means we're under done.

So, we have an international crisis, but one in which we entered pretty ill prepared. That's not the fault of Australian households. It's certainly not the fault of factories in my electorate in Smithfield and Wetherill Park and St Clair and Erskine Park and all-around Australia who rely on gas and energy for their inputs.

We were really worried that we're going to see factories starting to close next year because of energy prices. We just weren't going to let that happen, and we're not going to let that happen.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Okay. Look, the Opposition is saying that you played silly buggers; they didn't have enough information about this Bill, it was left to the last minute. What do you say about that?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, complete nonsense. I mean the Shadow Minister said on Sunday he'd read the Bill, and that's why he was voting against it because he didn't like it, Peter Dutton said yesterday he didn't have the Bill, I mean pick your argument, pick your alibi, stick to it, and in fact the Opposition received an hour long briefing two days ago from my Department, the Treasury and our offices, the Leader of the Opposition's office, the Shadow Minister's office, the Shadow Treasurer's office were all in that briefing, so we've been very respectful, but they just don't want to play ball, they don't want to be constructive. Their talking points have basically been the gas companies' talking points. They don't believe that we should intervene to reduce energy price increases next year. That's their point. They've made their choice.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: All right. Well, you're in the hot seat. We will talk to you about this no doubt in the coming weeks. Thank you so much, Chris Bowen, really appreciate it, on a busy day.

CHRIS BOWEN: Good on you. Cheers.