Dick Smith to donate $300 bill relief as millionaires rally against Albo’s budget

Some of the nation’s wealthiest people have banded together to say they don’t need the Albanese government’s $300 cash handout to pay their energy bill.

NSW’s 3.3 million households will still be slugged with higher power bills than when Labor came to government promising to slash the cost by $275, despite getting a one-off $300 energy rebate.

The $300 energy bill rebate has also been blasted by Australian millionaires, who say the scheme should be means tested to ensure the cash is going to households in need of support.

The federal Government’s $3.5 billion energy relief unveiled in the budget this week leaves NSW residents between $539 and $727 worse off than they should be by 2025 under Anthony Albanese’s election pledge.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers would not concede Labor was on track to breach its promise, insisting he was focused on helping households “right now in 2024”.

Based on analysis of the Default Market Offer, a typical household bill of about 6800kWh in 2021 for Endeavour customers was $2014, which three years later has soared to $2766.

Clockwise from top left: Rich-listers Dick Smith, Gina Rinehart, Clive Palmer and Graham Turner give their views on the $300 rebate.

For Ausgrid customers, bills have gone from $1912 to $2476, and for Essential customers, bills jumped from $2271 for a typical household in 2021 to $2964 in 2024.

Even with a $300 rebate in 2024-25, bills would have to drop a further $727, $539 or $668 depending on energy provider for Labor to meet its pre-election commitment

Electronics millionaire Dick Smith is calling on all wealthy Australians to hand their $300 energy bill rebate from the Albanese Government to charities, calling the handout “completely wrong”.

“I’ve decided I’m going to hand my $300 to the Salvation Army today and I’m asking every other wealthy Australian to do the same,” he said. “It will give the charities the money they desperately need. It’s completely wrong, it sends the wrong message. The top 1 per cent have the same wealth as the bottom 5 million Australians and to give wealthy people, especially billionaires, $300 of taxpayers’ money is quite wrong.”

Businessman and politician Clive Palmer called the subsidy a “stunt”.

“It should be means tested so that it goes to the people who really need it and increased so it makes a meaningful difference,’’ Mr Palmer said. “If it was done properly and means tested, more could go to the families who need it most.”

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart said the government could have made a suite of other changes. 

“If the Government really cared about Australians struggling with high costs, they would remove the onerous Government paperwork and their unfair limits on pensioners, veterans and students working hours, each of whom face higher effective tax rates than me if they choose to work above a very small threshold of hours,” she said.

“Letting Australians who want to work, work, would be not only better for those Australians and their families, but would save the need for the Government’s very expensive policy of hugely increased immigration, to allegedly bring in more workers.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers have been criticised over their$300 power bill rebate to every Australian. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Flight Centre boss Graham “Screw” Turner did not buy Mr Chalmers’ explanation that tying the incentive to income data would have required a “whole new” system.

“It should be means tested … for a significant number of Australians, the $300 will be insignificant and it all adds to the deficit,” he said. 

“It will cost the Government a lot of money. With a bit of thought I’d be amazed if they couldn’t have done it in a more targeted way.”

Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes declined to comment. 

Mr Chalmers said providing more targeted support would have delayed relief.

“(Millionaires) are not the focus here. But once you start paying this energy bill relief beyond people on pensions and payments, which is how we did it last time, once you start providing it more broadly, the energy retailers, and they are who we work through in order to provide this relief, they don’t have information about people’s incomes,” he told radio 6PR.

“You’d have to design a whole new system, it would take time and money.”

While spruiking his budget at the National Press Club, Mr Chalmers said the Government was focused on helping people “right now”.

“We did it in the last budget, we have done it in a more substantial way in this budget and it’s a really crucial part of our cost-of-living package,” he said.

The policy pledges $300 relief to “more than 10 million households”, however. on the last census night, about 10 per cent of Australia’s 10,318,997 private dwellings were unoccupied, meaning that more than $300 million in payments could wind up going to the owners of second homes.

Airbnb and other short term rental owners would also potentially “double dip”.

Deputy Opposition leader Sussan Ley said the Coalition was concerned about “energy relief for millionaires owning empty homes.”

“The Coalition will not stand in the way of energy relief for struggling Australians because after two failed years under this Labor Government, they desperately need it,” she said.

“But there are serious questions for Anthony Albanese to answer about why multi-millionaires can seemingly double, triple, quadruple-dip on this $300 payment – Australians deserve to know just how much of this $3.5bn program is funding energy relief for millionaires.”

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Originally published as Dick Smith to donate $300 bill relief as millionaires rally against Albo’s budget