Queenslanders promised Australia’s cheapest power bills

A day after promising to create a new public power retailer, Premier Steven Miles said on Thursday his party would guarantee Queenslanders lower bills than the average mainland national market price.

The guarantee is essentially a safety net to be offered through the proposed new retailer’s pricing, or via rebates, and would be funded through the increased coal royalty revenue the state receives when global energy prices are higher.

“We are so confident that our plan for the energy network will deliver cheaper wholesale prices that we are able to introduce this guarantee for all Queensland households, that they will always have the cheapest power in Australia,” Miles told journalists.

Treasurer Cameron Dick, Rockhampton candidate Craig Marshall, Premier Steven Miles and Keppel MP Brittany Lauga.Credit: Matt Dennien

He made his announcement at a campaign stop at the state-owned Stanwell power station outside Rockhampton, as David Crisafulli campaigned an hour’s drive east at Emu Park.

Crisafulli, at Emu Park for a youth mental health announcement, said he supported interim cost-of-living measures such as the rebate, and also promised to manage the state’s power assets better to “drive down the ongoing costs”.

“We believe that is absolutely essential because of the way that the government has failed to provide the affordable energy that Queenslanders need,” he said.

“The difference is, I’ve spent the last three-and-a-bit years talking about how do you drive down those long-term structural costs?

“You will recall I went to Callide within a week of that explosion, and I stood there beside the plant, and I asked, ‘was maintenance an issue?’ and the government said it absolutely was not.

“They have spent tens of millions reviewing it and tens of millions covering it up and the truth is, a maintenance failure was the reason it happened.”

Meanwhile, the incumbent treasurer, Labor’s Cameron Dick, accused Business Chamber Queensland of being a “proxy for the LNP” after it criticised Labor’s announcement of a state-owned retailer.

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