Image: Greens leader Adam Bandt. Photo: Facebook/Adam Bandt.
By CHRISTINE LAI
A deal has been struck between Labor and the Greens to introduce a “significant package” that pushes a transition away from households using gas appliances in 2023.
The plan to cap gas prices to limit power bill spikes passed on Thursday which will see next year’s federal budget including funding for an electrification package targeted at low-income households.
Through this deal, the federal government will provide subsidies for low-income households and small businesses at the value of $1.5 billion while legislating a 12-month gas price cap of $12 a gigajoule to ensure a mandated code of conduct for gas companies.
The support package will benefit from states set to pass cuts to energy bills.
The funding relief aims to improve energy efficiency and protect households against exponential price increases for fossil fuels during the ongoing cost-of-inflation crisis.
Greens welcome change
The Greens welcomed the electrification reforms with Greens leader Adam Bandt describing today as the “beginning of the end for gas”.
“Greedy gas corporations have been taking this country for a ride. Gas is expensive, it’s unhealthy, and it is polluting. Gas is as dirty as coal. If we do this package right, it will make a big difference for people on low incomes’, Bandt said.
Bandt has previously spoken about the benefits of this package, stating that it is directed to low- and middle-income workers like those currently renting or living in public housing.
“One way of addressing that is helping people get out from under the greedy gas corporations by generating and saving more in their own home.
The Greens have secured a significant package that will help meet the costs of households and businesses to switch over from dirty and expensive gas to cleaner and cheaper appliances and that could save households hundreds of not thousands of dollars”, Bandt said at a press conference on Wednesday.
According to the Australian Associated Press (AAP), Bandt declared a need to find an alternative to using gas and for households to pay less for their electricity bills.
“We’ve got to find a way of getting people off expensive appliances with the Commonwealth meeting costs so that they can get on to cheaper, cleaner, renewable energy”, he said.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has spoken against Labor’s energy bill, calling the deal a “political wedge”, raising issues with features included in the package that seem unclear.
“They still can’t tell us who will be targeted in the $1.5 billion package. They can’t tell us the definition of small business. They can’t tell us whether the money will be inflationary so that people will end up paying more in interest rates because of putting this money into the economy. They can’t provide any modelling because the modelling hasn’t yet been done”, Dutton said.
Bandt has stated that the package will “unlock hundreds if not thousands of dollars in savings to the people who need it most” during a time of economic crisis.
The gas transition deal to cap coal prices and reduce household costs will be enacted from April next year.
