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Speaker 1: Liz Stevens is from Energy Consumers Australia. On last night's

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Speaker 1: federal budget are three hundred dollars energy rebate. Electricity rebate

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Speaker 1: is the core of it, to be paid over four

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Speaker 1: installments of seventy five dollars per quarter. Liz Stevens, good morning,

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Speaker 1: Thanks for your time.

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Speaker 2: Hi Matthew.

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Speaker 1: Great to be honest, I imagine you'd welcome this, Yes,

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Speaker 1: we do.

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Speaker 2: Look, it's good to see that in that Australians who

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Speaker 2: are doing it tough and the cost of living crisis

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Speaker 2: are going to get some money off the energy bills.

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Speaker 1: And overall in terms of what the budget delivers to consumers.

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Speaker 1: Are you pleased with that? Obviously you would be any

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Speaker 1: other aspects of it.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think from us, the main point is we're

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Speaker 2: really pleased to see this. We're seeing in our research

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Speaker 2: that more and more consumers are doing it's tough. We're

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Speaker 2: seeing an increase in the number of consumers who are

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Speaker 2: saying that they're worried that in the next three years

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Speaker 2: their energy bills are going to become unaffordable for them,

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Speaker 2: and we're seeing this thing called the energy divide, which

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Speaker 2: is basically the gap between Australians who have access to

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Speaker 2: and can afford energy and those who can't, and we're

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Speaker 2: seeing that widen and more and more Australians fall into

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Speaker 2: that gap. So from our point of view, this is

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Speaker 2: a good move. But that said, this is at the moment.

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Speaker 2: It's a good opportunity for the government to put in

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Speaker 2: place measures that are going to stop this being a

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Speaker 2: problem long term, and that's something that we would really

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Speaker 2: like to see. So we would like to see a

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Speaker 2: number of different things put in place for consumers long

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Speaker 2: term to help them to deal with their energy bills,

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Speaker 2: because one of the things that we're seeing is that,

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Speaker 2: for example, consumers can't understand the energy bills. I don't

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Speaker 2: know if you can't. If you can't, I certainly have trouble.

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Speaker 2: And I'm not surprised you to know that lots of

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Speaker 2: people in the energy sext they have trouble understanding their

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Speaker 2: bills as well. They're very, very complicated. We're seeing that

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Speaker 2: people don't really understand what is driving those energy bills,

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Speaker 2: and they don't understand what they can be doing to

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Speaker 2: lessen their energy bills, what sort of stuff, what measures

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Speaker 2: they can take. They don't have the information in the

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Speaker 2: advice that they need. So one of the things that

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Speaker 2: we'd really love to see invested in is essentially a

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Speaker 2: one stop shop for energy consumers where people can go

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Speaker 2: to get the information and the advice that they need

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Speaker 2: and also the support. So we'd like to see financial

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Speaker 2: supports for Australians with particularly energy efficiency. You know, a

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Speaker 2: lot of Australians, especially you're in South Australia, a lot

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Speaker 2: of Australians in South Australia as well as other parts

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Speaker 2: of the country, when it gets cold, they've basically got

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Speaker 2: a house that has the energy efficiency of the pomp

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Speaker 2: and that is causing their bills to be high a

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Speaker 2: lot of time because they you know, it costs a

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Speaker 2: lot to heat and call those houses. But people can't

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Speaker 2: afford to put in place the measures that they need

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Speaker 2: to be able to, you know, to stop that. So

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Speaker 2: we really want to see financial supports for people to

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Speaker 2: get over that hurdle and to be able to you know,

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Speaker 2: make the differences that they need to be able to

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Speaker 2: make in their homes and particularly low income people, mentors

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Speaker 2: and people who are living in apartments, the energy efficiency

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Speaker 2: and the ability to make most of the the energy

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Speaker 2: transition as we call it. You know, moving to the

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Speaker 2: newables is a big thing that a lot of people

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Speaker 2: can't access and put in play supports. To be able

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Speaker 2: to help people to make a difference in their homes

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Speaker 2: would mean that they had longer term supports, not just

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Speaker 2: the one off.

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Speaker 1: I read a text out just before the last AD break,

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Speaker 1: was just before you came on, from somebody saying it

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Speaker 1: does look the energy rebate all very well and good.

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Speaker 1: Seventy five a quarter does nothing to keep power prices down.

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Speaker 1: This just is money that goes into the pockets of

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Speaker 1: the retailers. Ultimately, because of course bills will continue to rise.

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Speaker 1: It might help offset up for this year at the

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Speaker 1: rate of seventy five bucks, but I don't know that

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Speaker 1: we'd even notice that if if energy prices go up again.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I don't have a crystal ball, man. I

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Speaker 2: wish I did, God, i'd be wealthy. So I have

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Speaker 2: no idea whether the energy bills are going to go

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Speaker 2: up or down long term. One thing that we do

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Speaker 2: know is that the more renewable energy goes into the system,

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Speaker 2: the cheaper the bills should be. Because a lot of

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Speaker 2: the energy price and the sort of wholesale prices and

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Speaker 2: things is linked to the thing that's generating the power,

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Speaker 2: and we know that renewable energy is very cheap in

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Speaker 2: comparison to a lot of other forms of energy. So

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Speaker 2: you should see the whole sale prices go down as

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Speaker 2: we saw in the summer with solar, where goodle Solo

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Speaker 2: on the roof put their wholesale prices down.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Indeed, Liz, I reckon if you did have a

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Speaker 1: crystal ball, you'd be broken if it was powered by electricity.

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Speaker 1: So there you go. Thank you for your time today.

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Speaker 2: You're very welcome, Matthew.

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Speaker 1: Always pleasure Liz Stevens from the Energy Consumers Australia Group