Portfolio — 26 March 2026

Senator Green used the Senate adjournment debate on 25 March to highlight the tangible household impact of the government's home battery rebate scheme, anchoring her contribution in a personal account from a retired Townsville resident on a fixed income who installed a battery under the scheme and now receives a zero-total power bill with a credit balance returned to his supplier [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s118].

She reported that over 1,000 Townsville households have installed batteries under the scheme, with 50,000 Queenslanders participating statewide — a figure she stressed skews toward regional areas and people on fixed incomes, groups the government routinely identifies as most exposed to energy cost pressures [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s118].

Senator Green framed the scheme explicitly as dual-purpose: cost-of-living relief and environmental action delivered together. She used the adjournment to draw a sharp contrast with the opposition, citing Senator Matt Canavan's characterisation of the program as "middle-class welfare on steroids" and pointing to a broader pattern of Coalition opposition to battery rebates, affordable housing legislation, paid parental leave expansion, student debt reduction, and cheaper medicines [TA-260325-senate-9aaa61ce6ff6:s118].

The contrast was clearly designed to position the government's delivery record against what she characterised as a pattern of opposition to cost-of-living measures across multiple policy domains.