Economic Recovery Fund

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:27): Will Nippy's power bills go down as a result of the government's Economic Recovery Fund announcement today?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:27): I thank the leader for his question and congratulate him on taking up his new role. Today, I had the pleasure of attending a proud South Australian manufacturer—Electrolux—in Dudley Park, a long-term manufacturer of whitegoods in South Australia and a very energy-intensive business who have themselves significantly invested in their own operations to bring down their power costs, transferring from a gas-fired furnace that they had as part of their manufacturing operations to a new more advanced and energy-efficient electric furnace.

The Minister for Small and Family Business and I attended there with the general manager of Electrolux to talk about the second round of the Economic Recovery Fund grants which are specifically tailored to small businesses. As you would be aware, of the roughly 150,000 or 160,000 businesses operating in South Australia at any one time, the vast majority of those, approximately 95 per cent of those, are small businesses, and the definition used by the federal government, for example, when it comes to energy consumption for small business, is less than 160 megawatt hours of consumption per year.

Our Economic Recovery Fund that we announced today was $20 million in grants for those small businesses: the dominant cohort of the business community in South Australia, the cohort that employs the majority of South Australians across all different types of industries. From this week, they will be able to apply for grants between $2,500 and $50,000 to fund improvements in their business operations or their business premises to bring down their energy consumption.

What we did last year I think was welcomed by many recipients, where we partnered with the federal government to provide energy bill reductions for the course of the last financial year. That assistance, of course, is welcomed by those who receive it over the period of time that it's received. But that only lasted a year and so this year what we are doing is we are helping those South Australian small businesses invest in their businesses to lock in lower energy consumption and lock in lower bills from now on, not just for this year but for the years to come, and doing that in a way that encourages South Australian businesses to adopt more energy-efficient processes, operations or investments. It could be anything from solar panels to batteries. It could be more efficient refrigeration or cooking appliances. It could be improvements in business premises and in plant and equipment. They will be able to do that.

Nippy's, of course, is a very large business and a very large consumer of energy. What we saw in today's paper is what happens when large businesses, who are able to negotiate specific longer term contracts with retailers at a particular price, come off those contracts and they go on to the open market where they are subject, for example, to the prevailing spot price for energy. We are working to co-invest with the vast majority of South Australian businesses, or the sector that represents the vast majority of South Australian businesses. For larger consumers, the importance of those longer term contracts with more beneficial pricing can't be underestimated.