Doorstop interview at Parliament House

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY, SENATOR JENNY McALLISTER: Today is an important day for the Australian Parliament. Australian households and Australian businesses are dealing with really difficult situation. The illegal war in Ukraine, the invasion of Ukraine by Mr Putin has caused a global energy crisis, the like of which we haven't seen for 50 years. The consequence of that is that energy prices have been going up for households, energy prices have been going up for businesses and we have an opportunity today to do something about it.

Since coming to office, the Albanese Government has been working through these issues in a methodical way. None of it has been helped by the fact that over the last decade, the Liberals spent ten years squabbling with one another, unable to land a single energy policy. They had 22 goes, 22 goes over a decade and none of those energy policies landed, and it's left our energy system in a very difficult position.

So, since coming to office, we have been working with the market regulators, working with the states and territories, working with industry to set up our energy system for the coming decade, to make the transition that we know needs to occur, to deal with climate, but also to strengthen the resilience of our systems so that it can conserve our economy over the coming years. But we've got to deal with the short term as well. That is what the bill before the Parliament today is all about. It puts a cap on the prices offered by coal and gas suppliers to ensure that our generators can provide power at a reasonable cost. It won't deal with all of the cost increases, but it will take the sting out of the tail and that will matter a great deal for households and businesses. It establishes arrangements that will allow us to provide rebates to households and businesses, again, working with the states to take the sting out of the price increases, and of course, we will continue the work of strengthening our energy system for the future.

Yesterday, we confirmed that we will work across the Parliament to establish new measures under the National Energy Performance Strategy. Now, this was a strategy we kicked off some months ago, working with businesses, working with the sector to think carefully about how we can make the most out of the energy that we buy. The truth is that too much energy in Australia is wasted. We need to make every watt count. Across households and businesses, energy is literally leaking out of the system, through buildings that aren't sufficiently well designed or through appliances that are inefficient. We have opportunities to do better on this. Working across the Parliament with the crossbench, we have agreed that at the next Budget we will bring forward a package of measures to support households in that transition. They'll be carefully targeted, and will be, of course, about the households. But will make – that will find it most difficult to make this transition, but it is just another opportunity to strengthen our electricity system, to strengthen the arrangements by which we deliver energy and to set our economy up for the next decade, after 10 years of neglect under the Liberals.

JOURNALIST: Are there any concerns that this is going to add to the inflation or rising interest rates for the average household?

McALLISTER: The arrangements we've put in place are deliberately designed to reduce inflation and to minimise the inflationary impacts. We are very, very careful in the way that we've approached the last budget and indeed in the way that we are approaching this package of measures to take pressure off. We don't want to make the Reserve Bank's job any harder than it needs to be.

JOURNALIST: Is there any idea on how much this will cost the Budget to implement these measures?

McALLISTER: The National Energy Performance Strategy is a process that we are working through in consultation with industry and, of course, in consultation with the crossbench. We're not in a position to announce specific measures now, but we will be working in a consultative way with all of these organisations as we approach the Budget. I note that yesterday organisations like ACOS, like the Property Council, like the Energy Efficiency Council put out statements welcoming this measure. I look forward to working with those stakeholders as we approach the next Budget. Thanks.