Press Conference, Gold Coast

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT: Well thanks everyone for being here today. And thanks in particular to Tim and Kelsey, homeowners here in Helensvale on the northern Gold Coast, which has proven to be the suburb with the most popular uptake of the Albanese Government's Cheaper Battery program anywhere across the Gold Coast. Thanks also to Nigel and Tanya from RESINC who are joining us today.

They installed the battery here at Tim and Kelsey's house and are happy to talk to you about this from an installer’s perspective as well. What we're here to do today is to really put a spotlight on an incredibly successful program that the Albanese Government has introduced to provide a payment towards those Australians who want to install a battery as part of meeting their energy needs in their household and also in their small business.

That payment is already helping homeowners right across the Gold Coast and right across the country, reducing their power bills. And hearing from Tim and Kelsey, it's made a massive difference to reducing their energy bills. And noticing their electric vehicle in the front yard, it means that they're also avoiding some of those increased fuel costs that so many Australians are facing as well.

Now, I think we’ve provided you with some of the figures about which suburbs on the Gold Coast have seen the biggest uptake of the Cheaper Batteries program. Interestingly it's the northern Gold Coast, with everyday Gold Coasters - not necessarily the richest parts of the Gold Coast - everyday people, taking up the Cheaper Batteries program as a way to make a difference to their energy bills and to assist them with their cost of living.

So we see this suburb including Helensvale, a suburban area of the Gold Coast, leading the pack here on the Gold Coast. With Pimpama and Coomera following close behind. There's been some good uptake on the southern Gold Coast as well around Burleigh, and Mermaid Beach.

But as I say, often people suggest that these sorts of programs are taken up by only the richest parts of the community. In fact, what we're finding here on the Gold Coast and right across the country is that it's your average families in suburban areas who are taking up this program as a way to reduce their power bills. And all up across the Gold Coast, we've seen more than 7,000 Gold Coasters take up this program, with more applying every single day.

So congratulations to Tim and Kelsey for taking up this opportunity, for taking advantage of a great way to reduce your power bills. The Albanese Government is going to remain very focused on supporting Gold Coasters and all Australians with cost of living pressures, and this is another example of how we're trying to help people with some of those pressures and bring those bills down.

I might hand over to Tim so he can talk to you a little bit about what this has meant for his family, and then maybe if we can take questions on this and then move on to any other national or statewide issues. Thanks very much. JOURNALIST: Cool, walk us through your incentive for getting on board with a solar battery?

TIM PATTERSON, LOCAL HOMEOWNER: The incentive was the government scheme, and getting the rebates while they were available made it a lot cheaper and more affordable for our household. JOURNALIST: What kind of savings are you looking at, Tim? TIM PATTERSON: So far, we've gone from $200 to $300 a month down to about $10 to $20 a month.

So a couple of hundred each month, yeah. JOURNALIST: Does it provide you - with everything going on at the moment, cost of living increasing, cost of fuel, cost of everything increasing - does it provide you with some kind of peace of mind as well? TIM PATTERSON: Absolutely.

We see all the news headlines at the moment, with the cost of fuel going up, and it's definitely peace of mind sitting back and not having to worry about that because our electricity bills are lower. And also having the EV means we're not paying for that fuel as well. JOURNALIST: Has it presented any challenges for you and your family at all, Tim?

TIM PATTERSON: No, none at all. No, it hasn't. JOURNALIST: I’m sure that's what everyone here wants to hear.

Look, that's probably about it. MURRAY WATT: One interesting thing I thought- do you want to just mention how your neighbours have reacted? TIM PATTERSON: Yeah, yeah.

So we've mentioned to the neighbours that we were having this done, and I've had two or three of them - because we live in a cul-de-sac - reach out to us and ask about the battery and whether it's worth it and have asked about who we went through to install and are now interested in doing the same thing. JOURNALIST: Can you just talk me through like how- I don't know too much about it, sorry, but the rebate itself, like the whole scheme, was it easy when you first decided to get solar, was it an easy process or?

TIM PATTERSON: It was. So the installer organised everything. So it was just basically a video conference call with our installer to go over the numbers.

They included the rebate in their proposal and you could see the price difference and how much that brought that down by. JOURNALIST: Did you decide to get a larger system because of the rebate or just- TIM PATTERSON: We did, yeah. So we originally went to the installer and were asking for one battery, we decided to go with two because of the rebate.

So, we doubled the size of our battery because that was available to us. JOURNALIST: Were you always going to get solar if the rebate didn't exist or did that sort of sweeten the deal? TIM PATTERSON: It sweetened the deal.

So we were always going to get solar. I'm big advocate for renewable energy so we were always going to get solar, but it definitely sweetened the deal having the government rebates available to us. JOURNALIST (TO INSTALLER): Do you just want to maybe talk us through how much of the rebate knocks off your bill and all that sort of stuff if that's okay?

NIGEL MCNAMARA, RESINC SOLAR INSTALLATION: And I have to say that I'm a solar and a battery user myself. And I actually bought before the rebate, bought a couple of years ago, and managed to maintain a zero-dollar bill for the last two years. So that's really good.

But for Tim and Kelsey here, the advantage with the rebate allowed them to go with a bigger battery. And a battery for those people that have solar is the game changer because so many people have solar on their roofs, and they use what they use during the day, but typically, they send a lot back to the grid and they only get three, four, five cents a kilowatt for what they sell back to the grid.

If you can put that into a battery and then utilise that at night, then you're not having to buy that power back at 35, 40, 45 cents a kilowatt. So it just makes so much sense for the homeowner, and that's why we've seen such big savings for the likes of Tim and Kelsey. JOURNALIST: And these batteries- like you're saying, I got a mate who's got solar.

He doesn't do any washing during the day. He does it at night-time off the battery. Is that sort of a good thing?

People can save a bit more even by doing that at night when it's in the battery? NIGEL MCNAMARA: Yeah, they can. For anyone that's got solar, you're making your solar during the day.

So if you can utilise your appliances during the day, the pool pump for six to eight hours, whatever it might be, then you're utilising that pool pump while the sun is out. And the excess that the solar's making will be going into the battery protecting you at night. So, we'd still advocate that where you can, you use your main appliances during the day.

But here in South East Queensland, where it starts to get warm early afternoon, mid-afternoon, when you got your solar and a battery, instead of having to wait, sweat a little bit before you put the aircon on, you can check your app so you can see how much solar you’re producing, see how much the house is using, how much is going back to the grid, you can make a comfort decision and so you can use that air con earlier.

And I wouldn't cool the house down sooner so you don't have to depend so much on power later in the evening. JOURNALIST: And you can charge your car for free at night off the battery that you store during the day? NIGEL MCNAMARA: You can, but again, of an evening (is good but even better) during the day of course.

And there's a number of retailers- there's more than 20 retailers in South East Queensland at the moment, and some of those have special rates for charging EVs overnight as well. JOURNALIST: What's demand been like, Nigel? And did you notice a significant increase when this scheme was expanded?

NIGEL MCNAMARA: Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So, when I bought a battery two years ago, I was one of the first people to buy it.

It was something we would see once every couple of months. But come July 1 and with the publicity that was there, we've seen something like a six-fold increase. That's put a massive strain on the industry, of course, because you can't multiply the number of installers.

So we do have people in a queue to be installed, but we're not going to rush quality for time. JOURNALIST: And we know that the scheme is being altered as of tomorrow, I believe? NIGEL MCNAMARA: JOURNALIST: Are there any concerns from the industry about the impacts of that?

NIGEL MCNAMARA: No. Personally, I think that's a good thing. The biggest hit on the rebate is for those that are buying big batteries and unless you've had a full consultation with a solar company and they understand your bill, work out what your solar can produce, and what size battery best suits.

We've seen a number of people buy 50-kilowatt batteries and not need them. It’s like going away for a weekend with your biggest suitcase with hardly anything in it. You end up with a big battery, but it's not got much power in it because you're not producing enough.

So with the rebate reducing on those bigger batteries, we think that will protect some of the consumers that have not been aware of what it is they've actually been buying. JOURNALIST: And what would your standard household like this one generally be installing? And what kind of rebate are you looking at, or are they looking at, as of tomorrow, for instance?

NIGEL MCNAMARA: Okay so household, you can’t take by size – you’ve got to take by usage. We measure that usage in kilowatts. So, one of the things we do very carefully is we analyse the bill.

The bill will, typically, show us the kilowatts that are being used in that home. And we talk to the homeowners. We typically spend an hour to two hours with the homeowner going through the bill, helping them understand the bills.

Because the bill’s very complicated for a lot of homeowners, so not straight forward. And so once we decide what works - with this particular property we’ve got 13.3 kilowatts of solar panels on the roof - that equates to 28 panels, and we’ve got a 27 kilowatt battery. And that’s all based on the usage of this house both now, and then look a bit into the future as well so as you don’t get a year, two or three years down the line and you’re suddenly disappointed with decision that you made.

MURRAY WATT: We have made some changes to the rebate that’s available through the Government. As Nigel mentioned, what we found was that the original design of the scheme had some unintended consequences which is that it left it open to people to install much bigger batteries than they actually needed for their household and they weren't necessarily drawing much financial benefit from that anyway.

So we've adjusted those rebates. In some cases we have lowered those rebates for particularly the batteries. I couldn't give you the exact dollar figure because it'll depend on the size of the battery.

But the other point in doing that is about making sure that this program is sustainable financially for the long term. You know, money's got to be managed carefully from a government perspective. We want it to be achieving what the outcome and the objective is.

So, we think that change will make a difference and make the scheme more sustainable. But it will still assist people significantly reduce their power bills compared to what they've got at the moment. You know, Tim's talked to you about what it meant for his family, but just to give you an indication, for someone who's installing a 10-kilowatt battery - so a relatively small one - they can still about $1,000 a year off their power bill.

And if they move to a 15 kilowatt battery, you're looking at an average of about $1,600 a year - and they're at the smaller end of the batteries. So despite those changes coming in tomorrow, there is still a significant rebate available to people and we really encourage people to take up this offer as quickly as they can. JOURNALIST: Why the change to larger batteries?

Is it just purely- like you said, if people don't need it, what's the difference? Would you discourage them, I guess? MURRAY WATT: The feedback that we've received, both from the industry and from households is that, as I say, one of the unintended consequences of the original design of this program was that people were sometimes choosing to install much bigger than they actually needed, that they can't necessarily supply the amount of power off their solar panels into the full capacity of that battery.

So this program is really intended towards meeting people's actual needs rather than, if you like, building it to an overcapacity. So this change will certainly assist that and, as I say, make sure that this scheme is financially sustainable for the long term. Just before I take- there was one other thing I just needed to cover off for Canberra, if that's okay?

The other thing I just wanted to mention is that, today we're seeing another big step forward in the rollout of the Government's environmental law reforms. It's been a big week for the implementation of the reforms to the EPBC Act that we passed through the Parliament late last year. Just this week, the Prime Minister has announced $45 million from the Federal Government over the next four years to support negotiation of bilateral agreements between federal and state governments, which will allow us to speed up the assessment and approval process for projects around the country, while still making sure that we meet strong environmental standards.

And today, we have released for formal consultation the first draft National Environmental Standard, which covers matters of national environmental significance. Now, although there's a lot of jargon in there. To put it simply, developing new National Environmental Standards was a cornerstone of the review undertaken by Graeme Samuel of the former EPBC Act.

And what he said was that we needed to have clear guidance to proponents of projects, to government decision makers, and to the community about what kind of standards we were expecting of a project when it comes to the environment when it's being assessed and approved. And so that draft standard that we've put out today for consultation closing at the end of May, sets out much more clearly than we've seen before the expectations the Federal Government will have around impacts on some of our most precious species and habitat when it comes to assessing and approving a project.

So I certainly encourage those who've got an interest in this to get involved in that consultation process. And as I say, it's another sign that we're getting on with the job of implementing these reforms, which are all about providing stronger environmental protections and much faster, simpler processes for assessing and approving the housing, the energy projects, the renewables projects, the minerals projects and other projects that we need going forward.

Happy to take any questions. JOURNALIST: Just from our colleagues in Canberra, Pauline Hanson has billed taxpayers for trips in October - she held fundraisers, she's wooed Barnaby Joyce, attended a Gina Rinehart function. Do you deem that as a fair use of taxpayer money?

MURRAY WATT: Well, all federal politicians, when claiming taxpayer funding for their flights and accommodation, have an obligation to demonstrate that those flights and accommodation were undertaken for the dominant purpose of doing their jobs, their day-to-day jobs. So, you know, when I and other politicians fly around, we've got to be able to demonstrate to the public that we've done that for legitimate purposes.

I think it is incumbent on Pauline Hanson to explain to the public how claiming those airfares and accommodation fitted within the guidelines. It may be that she undertook other meetings that make those travel costs legitimate. But I think whenever we hear that politicians are only flying around for fundraising purposes or to attend functions with their major donor, Gina Rinehart, then we've got an obligation to explain that, and Pauline Hanson should as well.

JOURNALIST: How concerned is the Government about this practice? MURRAY WATT: Well, as I say, we apply high standards to ourselves and we expect other parties to apply high standards to themselves as well. I mean, Pauline Hanson and One Nation, for years, have carried on in a way that doesn't follow the same standards other political parties impose on themselves.

There have been many times when we've seen Pauline Hanson and One Nation say that they're above the rules. She's got a pattern of not disclosing donations that she's received from Gina Rinehart and Gina Rinehart's corporations. And just as Labor politicians or Liberal politicians have to disclose things and live up to the standards, so should Pauline Hanson and One Nation.

JOURNALIST: We've seen today, on another matter, the interim report from the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion. The Prime Minister, I see, has just made it clear that all recommendations from that interim report will be implemented. One of them concerns consistent national firearms agreement.

The Queensland Government's already kind of prefaced the fact that they don't want to enter into gun control. How does the Government plan to implement this? MURRAY WATT: Yeah.

So, as you mentioned, literally in the last half hour, the Prime Minister and other ministers have done a press conference outlining that we welcome the interim report of the Royal Commission, and that we will implement all recommendations that relate to the Commonwealth. I must admit, I haven't had an opportunity to look at those recommendations myself, but I'll certainly be interested to.

On the point you've raised about gun reform- actually, before I make that point I might also make the point that of course a central focus of this Royal Commission and its recommendations is about tackling and eliminating the scourge of antisemitism that we have seen in Australia and in many other countries around the world. In addition to that, it is important that we undertake gun law reform.

The reality is that those alleged to have committed that atrocity at Bondi just before Christmas had access to high-powered guns and multiple guns. And I don't see that there's any reason that people who live in suburban Sydney or, for that matter, suburban Gold Coast need to have access to the number of high powered weapons that we saw on display in Bondi. It has been disappointing to see the Queensland Government refuse to participate in that gun buyback scheme and to implement the kind of laws that we need to make sure that the community remains safe.

Even here in Queensland, we've seen some terrible gun violence - the police officers who were killed not that long ago at Wieambilla in southwest Queensland. We don't want to see those things continue to happen and tightening our gun laws in a responsible way is an important part of that while, of course, also making sure that we respect the rights of sporting shooters, farmers.

What's been put forward is a sensible plan that allows those who need access to weapons to have it, but remove weapons when they're not necessary and they're a danger to the public. So we've all got an interest in keeping our community safe. JOURNALIST: Do you see a middle ground between a Labor Federal Government and an LNP Queensland Government on this issue?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, I would like to think so. I mean, we obviously want to resolve this with the Queensland Government. We're not seeking to pick a fight here.

What we're seeking to do is to keep Queenslanders safe. And the best way we can do that is by implementing sensible gun law reforms that do restrict access for most people across the community to high-powered and large numbers of weapons, while preserving and respecting the rights of shooters and farmers. I think it’s possible to strike that balance.

We think that the reforms that were not just put forward by our Government but were agreed by National Cabinet with Premier Crisafulli as part of it, and it’s now time for him to get on with implementing those reforms that were agreed to at National Cabinet. Okay? Thanks, guys.

JOURNALIST: We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.