Good afternoon. The Minister for Energy, Josh Frydenberg and I and the Deputy Prime Minister and the Treasurer have just met with Australia’s largest energy retailers. I want to thank them for their attendance and for their cooperation, it was a very constructive meeting.
Now, we are focused and determined to keep putting downward pressure n electricity prices. The fact is that many Australian families - we believe as many as 2 million Australian families - are paying more for their electricity than they ought to be paying. That's to say they are stuck on rates and plans that are too high and inappropriate for them.
So we are determined to cut a better deal for Australian families and for Australian small businesses.
So I'm very pleased to announce that today we've secured the agreement of the energy retailers to write to more of their customers to inform them that a better deal is available.
As a result of the action from the two meetings we've now had with the retailers, as many as 2 million Australian families and small businesses could save hundreds of dollars on their electricity bills.
This is a very big breakthrough and it's happening here and now.
A lot of the things we are doing on energy are long-term, like Snowy Hydro 2.0, but this is helping Australian families now. You will have seen reports in the media of people who have been contacted and have secured substantial discounts from their existing plan, saving hundreds of dollars a year.
So what the retailers have agreed to do at the previous meeting, was to contact those customers they had who were on discounted plans that had expired and let them know that they were paying more than they ought to and that there are better options available. We've secured support for a rule change to the electricity market rules, to ensure that that is always done in the future.
We've secured a commitment from the retailers to provide clearer, more understandable information on the electricity rates that are available, along with the development of a single, simple dollar comparative rate.
Now, today's meeting went further, we've made further progress.
The retailers are now going to write to customers who are on standing offers, that is to say on the standard offer - that is at least another million households, more, in fact - to inform them that they can get a better deal.
Those letters will be sent out by Christmas, they've assured us. That will invite those customers to go to the Energy Made Easy website and see how they can save potentially a very large amount of money by moving to a more appropriate plan.
They will investigate, the retailers are going to investigate and move towards providing bills on a monthly basis rather than quarterly as it mostly done at the moment.
So this is another example of the progress that we're making. I want to underline the sharp difference between our approach and that of the Labor Party.
Bill Shorten has a plan only for higher electricity prices.
He has unachievable, unrealistic, unplanned renewable energy targets, without any plan for backup and storage that would make it possible, or feasible.
He’s got a continued commitment to putting a tax on electricity which will only put prices up.
And he has, in his Labor Party family, extraordinary conduct by state governments. In Victoria, in particular, where the state government will not allow the exploitation of the substantial gas reserves the state has, thereby reducing the amount of gas supply at a time when we need more gas. Of course, we're taking very deliberate and decisive action to bring down gas prices by increasing the supply by restricting exports. That was a problem Labor created when they were last in government.
But then in Victoria we also see now a commitment from the state government to massive increased renewable targets without any plans for storage or backup. What that will do, is continue the process of driving out baseload power, coal-fired baseload power with the result being, as we've seen already, less reliability and more expensive electricity.
If you want to see what that looks like, South Australia is the great example of that.
So we have an approach to electricity and energy prices and indeed an approach to the whole network which is founded on engineering and economics.
The Labor Party's approach - and nothing has changed, they've been doing this consistently for years - is founded on left-wing ideology and idiocy. Ideology and idiocy is what is guiding Labor and the result that Australians will feel from Labor governments is higher prices and less reliable electricity.
So we're going in the other direction. We're doing everything we can to ensure reliability and put downward pressure on prices, so that electricity is affordable for Australian families and for Australian business.
THE HON. JOSH FRYDENBERG MP, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY:
Thank you, Prime Minister. Due to the actions of your Government, Australian families are now alert to the big savings that they can achieve to their electricity bills by moving retailers or contracts.
Some 50 per cent of Australian households have not moved retailers or contracts over the last 5 years, even though their savings could be $1,000 or more by doing so.
Since our meeting just three weeks ago, over 215,000 hits on our government website Energy Made Easy, which allows people to compare their offer for electricity to other better offers that are available and to the market.
Today we continued the good progress from the previous meeting, where we got that commitment from the companies to write to those who are coming off market offers and to provide relief to those on hardship programs. Today we got a number of other substantial commitments.
Just one I would also like to point out, which is we received the agreement of the companies to move to a system whereby people can better access their consumption data and their payment data on a barcode on their bill. By using a smart phone or a similar device, they can click on that barcode and then automatically get access to better deals that are available in the market. A bit like the QR Code system that they have for the electricity market in the United Kingdom.
So today was a very significant step forward in what we are doing to lower power bills for Australian families.
PRIME MINISTER:
Very good.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, could I ask you said the Government last night, the Government won't build a coal-fired power station?
PRIME MINISTER:
No what I said was, I was asked if we had any plans to build a coal-fired power station and I said we didn't.
JOURNALIST:
Okay, but you think Australia should have a next-generation coal-fired power station?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I would certainly welcome that and I’ve been very consistent. Let me just recap the position, I've been consistent on this for the best part of a decade, actually.
We are the largest exporter of coal in the world. Coal has a big future to play, not just in our electricity generation, for many, many years to come, but in the world's. We have a vested interest in demonstrating that coal has a high-efficiency, low-emissions future. So I would welcome a high-efficiency, low-emission – a Healy - coal-fired power station being built in Australia.
I think it would be a good thing and I talked about that at the Press Club at the beginning of the year.
But I want to stress that our approach to energy is guided by engineering and economics, so it’s ‘all of the above’. Every technology has a role to play, from hydro and solar and wind, gas, biomass, coal and many others. So that’s our approach; it is not ideological like Labor's is and of course Labor has created so many of these problems we're now addressing.
JOURNALIST:
Considering that situation, what are you willing to do to get that built?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we don't even have a proposal. I would, if there was a proposal to build a new coal-fired power station, then there are various avenues. I mean if it was in Northern Australia, for example or North Queensland, for example, where I know there's been talk about it, it could well qualify for the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund.
But again, we are hypothesising and speculating on this because I'm not aware of any specific proposals. But let me be very clear about this; certainly Australia has a vested interest in at least a demonstration of Healy technology here. I've been making that point, as I said, for the best part of a decade.
Now can I say however, that the cheapest form of coal-fired energy is that which comes from the existing power stations. So you know again, a very important focus of the work that Josh and I have been doing with AEMO and being informed by all of the experts, is what can be done to maintain baseload generation in Australia by ensuring that some of these power stations are able to continue for longer. Rather than having sudden closures, as you had with Hazelwood, which a lot of very had costly consequences for the electricity market.
JOURNALIST:
Just on that, will the Clean Energy Target be set so that a new coal-fired power station is viable?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we will present a proposal on that shortly. But there is no, I don't foresee there being any barrier to a new coal-fired power station being built. There's no barrier to one built now. There are many factors to be taken into account.
We just have to be very clear about this. We are technology agnostic. My view, the Government's view, is all of the above.
The Labor Party is the party with the ideological objection, not just to coal, I might say. They’ve got a problem about gas, too. Ask the Premier of Victoria what he thinks of gas. He doesn't want to have any gas being extracted from Victoria. In fact he's talking about having an import terminal to allow gas to be shipped, presumably from north Western Australia or the Persian Gulf, all the way around to Victoria, because he says there's no gas in Victoria. Well, there is actually plenty of gas in Victoria. He won't allow it to be exploited and so, this is – again - left-wing ideology infecting the way in which we approach our energy options.
We should approach it on the basis of engineering and economics. So every form of generation has its particular characteristics and they should all be weighed up.
But Labor is against coal.
They're against gas.
They've done nothing on storage.
My Government is the first government to take on this, tackle the challenge of delivering large scale storage. Snowy Hydro 2.0, an initiative of my Government, will be not just the largest battery, pumped hydro in Australia, it will be the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. If it goes, as I suspect it will in the future, to double the size, to 4,000 megawatts, it will be the largest in the world.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister the retailers have agreed to this, is there any way of enforcing it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I will ask Josh to go into that in a bit more detail, but they’ve agreed to a number of rule changes so it will be literally be the law. But Josh, do you want to add to that?
THE HON. JOSH FRYDENBERG MP, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY:
Thanks Prime Minister, well the meeting last time, three weeks ago, agreed to a specific rule change which is now being worked through by the Australian Energy Market Commission and will be in place in a matter of weeks. That is the requirement to write and notify customers who are about to come off a market or discount offer.
Other rule changes agreed to today, relate to moving to monthly billing as opposed to quarterly billing for those who are on standing offers. Also a requirement that you cannot provide discounts for off-key base, that is higher than a standing offer.
What we have found is some companies had been producing market offers are which were more expensive than standing offers and then providing a discount off that higher base. Obviously that is not what is good news for a customer.
A good example of why dollars, not percentages, is going to be critical going forward; for example, if you were getting a 30 per cent discount on a 30 cents a kilowatt price for power, that wouldn't be as good a deal as getting a 20 per cent discount off a 20 cents a kilowatt price of energy.
It's that level of confusion which is trapping customers in these higher-priced deals, a higher price than they should be paying.
JOURNALIST:
When are that going to come out? When are they going change and also when are these letters coming out? Is that before Christmas, is that in the next billing cycle?
THE HON. JOSH FRYDENBERG MP, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY:
The letter that the Prime Minister alluded to, which was agreed to by the companies, is before the end of the year. With the monthly billing, the issue is related to those who have got the appropriate metering arrangements. There are differences between analogue meters and smart meters.
With smart meters you can move to these monthly billing arrangements much more easily. As you know, Victorian customers, for example, by and large have the smart meters and that new meters being introduced across the country are smart meters, but not everyone does.
So there will be a difference in terms of the time frame for the implementation of that particular change, based on where the technology is today.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, do you think informing customers of a higher rate is a band-aid solution?
PRIME MINISTER:
Of a lower rate, you mean.
JOURNALIST:
Yes, of a lower rate. Also when are you planning to implement that Clean Energy Target, you said shortly, but when?
PRIME MINISTER:
We're waiting on some advice from the Australian Energy Market Operator about the forecast shortfall of baseload power, this is dispatchable power. This is energy that can be generated, on demand 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That's what has been going out of the system.
This is very important to understand, that solar and wind are very valuable technologies and their contribution is increasing. It will continue to increase. The costs are coming down, but they are not dispatchable; the sun doesn't shine all the time, the wind doesn't blow all the time.
So you need storage, that's why Snowy Hydro 2.0 is so important. The biggest renewable energy project undertaken in Australia since the original Snowy Hydro scheme was built.
It's my Government that is taking that on. That is our decision, that’s our initiative. So when people say that the Turnbull Government is not committed to renewables, they're dead wrong.
We are totally focused on ensuring that renewables are reliable. Because what we're doing is, we're not being taken in with all the ideology. The reality is, Australians want to know that they can afford their electricity and it's reliable. Where the electrons come from, is a secondary consideration.
Now what Labor has done - because it's focused on this ideological approach - is that they have overlooked the fact that the object of the electricity system, is to deliver affordable, reliable electricity. So that's what we're focused on, we're focused on that.
In terms of what we're doing here, this is happening now. This is happening in real time, in the here and now. So these letters are going out. People, customers are already contacted. Customers, including some distinguished journalists who’ve written about it in their publications, some are getting contacted and they’re getting discounts and paying less for electricity.
We've got a series of policies on energy which operate in the here and now, like this one, that operate in the here and now, like what we’re doing on gas. You see gas prices, as you know, went through the roof because there was a shortage of gas on the east coast of Australia. Why was that? Well, it was the previous Labor government that Mr Shorten was a Minister in, that allowed gas to be exported without any regard for the consequences in the domestic market.
They didn't bother about Australian customers.
They were only interested, apparently, in exporting gas.
Well, we’ve had to solve for that again and put some restrictions on exports. The consequence of that measure is you've already seen the wholesale price of gas coming down. You've seen more gas being provided to the market. That's happening now.
In the medium-term, Josh has taken steps in what we're legislating, to abolish limited merits reviews, which is the way in which the owners of the poles and wires have gamed the system to overturn decisions of the Energy Regulator and in effect, jack up the price they're charging for their poles and wires.
That’s cost customers, that’s cost consumers, all of us, billions of dollars. So we're stopping that. That will have effect over the next few years.
Then in the longer term, six years or so, the time it will take to build Snowy Hydro 2.0, you've got another big contribution.
So whether it's in the here and now, the medium term or the long-term, we are absolutely relentlessly focused on ensuring that Australians pay no more for electricity than they need to and that we will have an electricity system that delivers affordable, reliable energy. That is our focus.
We're doing everything we can to deliver that.
JOURNALIST:
Can I ask, is, should Labor Senator Katy Gallagher should be referred to the High Court? What, and also do you have any concerns about the safety of Australians in South Korea and Japan considering the latest developments?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think the High Court has plenty of citizenship test cases already on its docket.
JOURNALIST:
So you’re not [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER:
I will leave that to Mr Shorten. He's got the opportunity to make a few disclosures of his own on that subject.
Look, turning to Korea. Again, we utterly condemn the reckless and provocative action by the North Korean regime with its latest missile launch, which as you know, flew over Hokkaido in northern Japan yesterday.
This is another reckless and dangerous act. It has been condemned by the global community. It's been condemned by the United Nations Security Council. Again, we call on all nations to enforce the UN Security Council sanctions as we are doing. We have our own autonomous sanctions and we will enforce the UN Security Council sanctions. But the country with the greatest leverage over North Korea - this is not a criticism of China, this is a fact - China has the greatest leverage over North Korea. It has a unique ability to bring the North Korean regime to its senses by applying economic pressure.
Now, China has said they will enforce, starting from next week, the UN sanctions. That would mean that North Korea wouldn't be exporting iron ore or coal or seafood for that matter, to China. That will bring a heavy cost to North Korea.
But China has the greatest leverage and with the greatest leverage, comes the greatest responsibility. So we call on all nations to do everything they can to bring this reckless regime to its senses.
On that note, we must wrap this up as I have a call with Prime Minister Abe on this very topic.
Thank you.
[ENDS]