Election 2025: Dutton’s $22.5bn power price hit warning as he fights Labor nuclear scare campaign

Peter Dutton will say households and small businesses have been hit with an extra $22.5bn in costs under Labor power price rises, as he moves to counter Labor’s nuclear energy scare campaign.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will ramp-up Coalition attacks on Labor’s renewables-only energy plan and broken power price promises as he seeks to counter ALP scare campaigns targeting his nuclear policy. Picture: Richard Dobson / NewsWire

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Peter Dutton will use new figures claiming households and small businesses have been hit with an extra $22.5bn in costs under Labor power price rises, as he moves to ignite a Coalition fightback against Anthony Albanese’s nuclear energy scare campaign.

The Opposition Leader – who is under pressure to ramp-up attacks on Labor’s broken promise to reduce power bills by $275 – will say households on the east coast are on track to pay an extra $3155 by the end of 2025-26.

Seizing on the Prime Minister walking away from Labor’s pledge to reduce household power bills by $275 from 2025 and $378 by 2030, Coalition analysis of Australian Energy Regulator data and east coast default market offer prices says the cumulative impact for households and small businesses will be an extra $18.6bn and $3.9bn.

Writing in The Australian, opposition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said “debating Labor on energy is like arguing against a drunk who constantly seeks to trump logic with lies … this was the story at the 2022 campaign, and it is again in 2025”.

Amid fears inside Coalition ranks that Mr Albanese and Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen are “getting away with scare campaigns” including its claim that Mr Dutton’s nuclear power plan will cost $600bn, Mr O’Brien on Tuesday escalated his attack on Labor’s “all-eggs-in-one basket renew­ables-only policy”.

After Mr Albanese’s multiple refusals during the May 3 election campaign to commit to lower energy prices under Labor, Mr O’Brien said the Prime Minister “lied and Australian households are paying the price, they’re already over $1300 a year worse off, and that pain is only going to get worse”.

“Labor’s power price rises are already a cumulative hit to the hip pocket of up to $3155 extra for families – that’s a whopping $18.6bn in additional costs to families on the east coast alone,” he said. “If this trend continues, some Australian families will be staring down annual electricity bills of over $4000 by the end of the decade, a far cry from the $378 cut Labor promised.”

“That’s a $12,000 cumulative hit to household budgets by 2030 and not a single apology or price commitment from Anthony Albanese or Chris Bowen.”

The Coalition will use its analysis in the final 10 days of the campaign to claim that if the same rate of price increases continue to June next year, Australians households would be paying up to $1300 a year more than Labor promised, which equates to “a cumulative hit of up to $3155 on additional power costs”.

By 2030, the Coalition will say, households could be paying up to $4000 a year for their energy, or up to more than $2450 than Labor promised at the 2022 election under its junked Powering Australia plan. The Coalition says this means a “cumulative hit to the hip pocket of up to $9324 by 2030 – or cumulatively $11,937 more than what Labor promised”.

On the ALP’s nuclear scare campaign, Mr O’Brien said the government was engaged in a “deliberate con-job on the Australian people”.

“Labor is putting all its store in presenting a new lie about energy to deceive Australians just like it did three years ago. But this time, it’s not their own policy they’re lying about but the Coalition’s.

“Labor like to pontificate about heeding advice from the CSIRO on nuclear energy, and yet its $600bn claim effectively multiples CSIRO’s assumed capital cost for a nuclear power plant by a factor of five.”

Mr O’Brien said under Mr Albanese’s energy plan, Labor’s renewables rollout “is running at less than half-pace, state governments are being forced to extend the life of coal plants and Labor is looking to start importing gas because it’s running short”.

“Not only are Australians now paying among the highest electricity prices in the world, but more businesses than ever are shutting their doors. As for emissions, they’ve barely moved.”