Energy Concessions

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:36): My question is to the Minister for Human Services. How many South Australian households have applied for the energy bill relief rebate? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: As I understand it, the government has advised that households already receiving energy concessions do not need to take any action to receive the rebate on 1 July this year. However, some 200,000 households that don't currently receive energy concessions but are eligible for the rebate will need to apply.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer) (14:37): I thank the deputy leader for his question. It's an important question, obviously, because there are approximately 420,000 households that stand to benefit from the energy relief plan. As we have already outlined to the house, and as the deputy leader reflected in his question, there are different cohorts of recipients. As the deputy leader rightly pointed out in his question, some of those recipients, approximately half, will be people who get state government concessions already. Then approximately another half of those will be people who are in receipt of Family Tax Benefit A and B.

In order to roll out these concessions or to make sure that the energy bill relief is delivered to those recipients, it requires a joint effort by Services Australia at the commonwealth level as well as the Department of Human Services at the state level to ensure that the energy retailers are taking the reductions from the energy bills. They are not passed directly to those recipients as some sort of cash handout; instead, the value of the energy relief is removed from the quarterly bill.

What has actually been the bulk of the work in trying to put this plan together has been trying to come up with a workable and accurate regime to ensure that both Services Australia and the Department of Human Services can accurately get that customer information to the energy retailers. That work is underway and the first bill that will benefit from the energy relief will be the first quarter of the financial year that starts from 1 July.

I can't give the deputy leader a specific update as to how far progressed they are, but I certainly haven't been any information that they are behind or not likely to meet the necessary time frames for those energy retailers.