Australian families will get $300 off their annual electricity bill, in a budget bid to ease the cost-of-living pressures being felt across the nation — but questions have been raised over the decision to give the rebate to every household, whatever their income.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers described his third budget as one to help struggling Australians while ensuring it was not triggering higher inflation.
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Small businesses will also get a $325 rebate for their electricity bills.
On Wednesday, Chalmers joined Sunrise host Nat Barr, where she asked the treasurer why an Aussie earning $1 million should get a $300 household energy rebate.
“If you’re earning a million dollars, why do you need a $300 power rebate?” Barr asked.
But Chalmers said wealthier Australians weren’t the focus of the rebate.
“It is primarily for people doing it tough — you know, millions and millions of Australians are under cost-of-living pressure,” he said.
“We’re trying to help. So more help is on the way for millions of people under the pump. Whether it is a tax cut for every taxpayer or energy bill relief for every household.”
Barr asked Chalmers if people earning $1 million were “under pressure”, but the treasurer said offering specifically targeted assistance was logistically impossible.
“Once you go beyond (pensioners), you have to design a whole new system because the energy retailers that we use to provide this help, they don’t have income information for people,” he said.
“We deliver this relief via energy bills, via the retailers. There’s not a system that allows you to slice and dice that beyond providing it either to people on pensions and payments.”
In other cost-of-living relief measures, all taxpayers are also set to get a boost to their take-home pay when the stage 3 tax cuts kick in on July 1, with lower and middle income earners seeing the most benefit.
The stage 3 tax cuts will allow Australian taxpayers to pocket between $350 and $4500 extra annually.
Barr then turned her questioning to inflation, asking if the energy rebate and the stage 3 tax cuts will drive up inflation.
“The tax cuts are roughly the same size as the tax cuts they replace, so they won’t put additional pressure on the inflation forecast,” Chalmers said.
“You can see by getting some of the edge off these bills — some of these big pressures that people are under — by putting downward pressure on bills, we put downward pressure on inflation.”
Barr shot back: “How do you know those figures are right, though? You are at odds with the RBA and the treasury gets figures wrong sometimes, don’t they?”
“We know from experience that energy bill relates, and rent assistance takes some of the edge off inflation,” Chalmers said.
“In terms of the forecast, obviously treasuries and Reserve Banks, they make their best estimate of how they expect the future to play out — we’re not at odds with anyone.”
Chalmers hosed down any suggestion the budget cost-of-living measures were an early election sweetener and said the intention was for the government was to go full term.
Other winners from the federal budget will include renters, who will get a helping hand, with the government committing $1.9 billion to increase the maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance.
A fortnightly supplement of up to $250 for welfare recipients who rent is up by 10 per cent.
The government has also committed to building more homes for Australians, fund infrastructure that supports more homes and deliver loans to help build more social and affordable housing.
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2024-05-15 04:00:33Z
CBMisAFodHRwczovLzduZXdzLmNvbS5hdS9zdW5yaXNlL2RvZXMtc29tZW9uZS1lYXJuaW5nLTEtbWlsbGlvbi1uZWVkLWEtMzAwLWhvdXNlaG9sZC1lbGVjdHJpY2l0eS1yZWJhdGUtbmF0LWJhcnItcG9pbnRzLW91dC1iaWdnZXN0LWZsYXctaW4tYnVkZ2V0cy1jb250cm92ZXJzaWFsLW1lYXN1cmUtYy0xNDY3MTM4OdIBAA
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