Power Prices

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:56): My question is to the Premier. What action, if any, is the Premier taking to assist South Australian households with their power bills. With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr PATTERSON: The AER's draft default market offer shows that South Australian households are facing an additional increase of up to $121 per year from 1 July.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (14:56): I thank the member for his question because, of course, we have ensured that in our budgets, since coming to government, we have delivered substantial cost-of-living relief to South Australians and that has been calibrated in two ways. It's been done to target those in our community who need the support the most, those people on fixed and low incomes, and it's also been done in ways which are flexible enough for them to use that financial support in a way which meets the sharpest pressures on their budgets.

It was a great pleasure for the Premier and I to visit a household that was in receipt of a substantial increase in the annual Cost of Living Concession. Not only have we increased the Cost of Living Concession but for those people who are renting, which is obviously important in the context of the questions that we have had in question time today, we have doubled it.

In addition to that, we have provided access to free public transport, we have doubled or substantially increased a whole range of other concessions and benefits to cohorts of South Australians who previously were languishing largely without relief because the way in which these supports have been left by the previous government meant that they were no longer fit for purpose, but in particular we also have provided substantial support for South Australians' energy bills.

We have seen a partnership between the commonwealth and the state to support approximately 400,000 South Australian households and businesses with their energy bills. That was followed up by the commonwealth providing a further round of substantial support from energy bills for South Australians. Then, in addition to that, we have used the Economic Recovery Fund, which we established in our first budget, to deploy nearly $30 million worth of grants to South Australian small businesses, not to provide a temporary one-off reduction in their energy bills but to invest alongside them in new solar panels, new batteries, new machinery, new refrigeration equipment, new insulation into any of those sorts of services or improvements to their businesses, which will—

Mr Telfer interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: The shadow treasurer says no businesses are investing in their premises. We increased the size of this scheme by 50 per cent because that was the demand from small businesses. It went from $20 million to $30 million because the demand for it was so great. The Minister for Small and Family Business here today has stood with businesses that stand to save tens of thousands of dollars a year off their energy bills as a result of this investment. So while the shadow treasurer says this reflects the lack of desire for businesses to invest in this scheme, nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps if he wanted to ask a question and he wanted to have a discussion about the facts, we could continue this discussion rather than him relying on his interjections across the chamber.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Flinders will leave the chamber for the rest of question time. He has been interjecting all day.

The honourable member for Flinders having withdrawn from the chamber: