DARREN CHESTER MP: My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. The minister has had several opportunities in question time this week to explain when Australian families can expect the $275 reduction in their power bills promised by the Prime Minister. Will the minister finally admit the Prime Minister wasn’t telling the truth, and not a single Australian family has seen the $275 reduction? Minister, why can’t anyone in the Labor Party accept responsibility and just say ‘sorry’ to the Australian people, who are struggling under Labor’s cost-of-living crisis?
CHRIS BOWEN MP (McMahon—Minister for Climate Change and Energy): I thank the honourable gentleman for his question. I take responsibility for the energy system in Australia. I take responsibility, as the minister, for progress. I take responsibility for dealing with the headwinds and the setbacks. That’s what a minister does. A minister takes responsibility and deals with it—doesn’t hide. Electricity rises before an election, for example. That’s an option. That is an option available to a minister. That’s not an option that I’ve chosen to take. I take responsibility for the progress. I take responsibility for dealing with the setbacks. I take responsibility for the more than a thousand batteries that have been installed in the honourable member’s electorate, the 1,139, that have been installed in the member’s electorate since 1 July. I note that, in Victoria, the wholesale price of energy in May 2022 was $233 a megawatt hour, and today it is $37 a megawatt hour. I do take responsibility for all the above.