QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr BOWEN (McMahon—Minister for Climate Change and Energy) (15:00): I thank the honourable member for Gilmore for her question, and I'm pleased to let the member and the House know that 535,833 Australian households have reduced their bills by installing a cheaper home battery, including 4,818 in her own electorate. I've told the House before that this is a story of the outer suburbs and regions, with six electorates where more than 10 per cent of the houses have installed a cheaper home battery: Mayo, Wright, Mitchell, Hume, Macquarie and Greenway.

And today I can tell the House that there's a seventh, another electorate which has had more than 10 per cent of its houses install a cheaper home battery, and it's a welcome-back present for the member for Chifley. Of the people of Chifley in Western Sydney, more than 10 per cent have installed a cheaper home battery. Aas good as those results are—and I know the member for Chifley would be very proud of that—I have to be honest with him and the House and say it's not as good as Mitchell, because in the electorate of Mitchell, which leads New South Wales now, one in eight houses has a cheaper home battery—12.5 per cent.

The member for Mitchell was here before. He's left the House now. I guess those ICAC hearings aren't going to watch themselves.

Someone back in his office. I assume, is sending texts to the Leader of the Opposition, his friend, giving him updates on how the ICAC hearings are going in New South Wales. But the Prime Minister and I chose the electorate of Mitchell to mark the half -millionth battery.

We visited RKS Energy Solutions and we talked to the apprentices and the hardworking installers—the highly credentialed, highly qualified small-business people who this government backs. The other side of the House doesn't back those small businesses, but this government does. To have 12.5 per cent of the electorate of Mitchell having cheaper home batteries means they are reducing their bills to nothing and helping the entire grid, because we now have more than 15 gigawatt hours installed.

I've told the House before the entire home battery capacity of the United States is nine gigawatt hours. We have now installed 15 gigawatt hours. The honourable member asked me what could stop this.

Well, the opposition could, and they've shown again today that they're opposed to this program. I'm grateful to the member for Wannon for being so clear about it. They would abolish it.

To be fair to the member for Wannon, he might be onto something. There was an opinion poll last week which showed 75 per cent of Australians support the cheaper home battery policy, 71 per cent of coalition voters support it and eight per cent would like it ended. That's a pathway back to government—eight per cent!

But the member for Wannon is in touch with the future generations, because 83 per cent of millennials support government support for cheaper home batteries. The member for Wannon is almost as good at politics as he is at policy. With a strategist like that opposing a policy which has the support of 75 per cent of Australian households and which would see only eight per cent support its abolition, I say to the member for Wannon: you keep going, son!

You keep going!