Statement

The report in the Australian Financial Review today that Treasury is looking to scale back Labor’s unsafe and unaffordable Cheaper Home Batteries Program, but are facing opposition from Chris Bowen, is yet another reminder that Labor is not serious about kicking their spending addiction.

If Labor were serious about addressing inflation, they would simply scrap the subsidy altogether.

While Chris Bowen is in Turkey working the phones for his Net Zero crusade, the isolated Treasurer will be doing likewise, calling up ERC members trying to undo the very work Bowen is boasting about overseas. You can’t make this stuff up.

Labor’s battery subsidy had an original budget of $2.3 billion and has blown out to $8.5 billion, the result of what Bowen’s own department has said was a “too generous” design flaw.

In the subsidy’s first year in operation, $3.95 billion was expended against a budget of $3.4 billion – almost half the program’s entire budget.

According to the Clean Energy Regulator, more than 60 per cent of all inspected batteries have been found to be substandard. 

ENDS

Media contact: Phil Connole M | 0417 063 605