{"id":619972,"date":"2025-12-08T11:51:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/619972\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T11:51:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:51:16","slug":"pure-political-pork-government-ends-energy-bill-rebate-as-treasurer-flags-difficult-budget-decisions-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/619972\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Pure political pork\u2019: government ends energy bill rebate as treasurer flags \u2018difficult\u2019 budget decisions | Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Chalmers<\/a> has foreshadowed more \u201cdifficult decisions\u201d in next week\u2019s mid-year budget update after cabinet decided not to extend billions of dollars in energy bill rebates into the new year.<\/p>\n

The withdrawal of the power bill subsidies comes as the Reserve Bank\u2019s monetary policy board mulls a recent rebound in inflation that could force the central bank to hike interest rates next year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pointing to the \u201cintensifying\u201d pressures on the nation\u2019s finances, the treasurer set the scene for a barebones fiscal update<\/a> that would contain no major new policy announcements.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a mini budget, but there will be savings, and there will be difficult decisions, and one of them is around these energy rebates,\u201d Chalmers said.<\/p>\n

He flagged blow-outs in programs such as veteran affairs were weighing on the budget bottom line, as were higher-than-anticipated spending as a result of natural disasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, there are pressures on the budget. Yes, there will be difficult decisions and savings to be made, but overwhelmingly, that\u2019s about making room for our priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

With cost-of-living pressures still and by far the No 1 issue confronting voters, the decision puts an end to weeks of speculation that the government could be tempted to push through another round of power bill subsidies.<\/p>\n

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And while the RBA board is not expected to move the cash rate in its final decision for the year on Tuesday, the prospect of potentially higher mortgage costs in 2026 will weigh on families.<\/p>\n

The energy bill rebates were first rolled out in mid-2023 to families and small businesses. Over the 18 months, the commonwealth will have spent nearly $7bn on the three rounds of subsidies, Chalmers said, with another $1.5bn in similar support packages funded by state and territory governments.<\/p>\n

Economists backed the decision, saying it was sensible to end a policy that had outlasted its original defensible aim of shielding the most vulnerable households from the spike in global energy costs associated with Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n

Chris Richardson, an economic commentator, said there was \u201cremarkably little to recommend [power bill rebates] as a policy\u201d, especially when it was widened to include all families and not just those in the greatest need.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pure political pork, as crispy as it comes,\u201d Richardson said, adding it would have been \u201cincredibly tempting\u201d for the government to continue with the rebates.<\/p>\n

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\u201cInstead they have made the decision that the natural party of government should make in these circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Phillips, an associate professor at the ANU\u2019s centre for social policy research, agreed the commonwealth rebates \u201cshould have gone earlier, but better late than never\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure we have entirely slayed the inflation dragon, but the days of 7% or 8% inflation have disappeared,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously the budget is looking tighter and the economy is not going too badly, so we don\u2019t need fiscal stimulus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anne Ruston, a Liberal senator, laid the blame for high power prices at the feet of the Albanese government, but declined to oppose the decision to end the rebates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you\u2019ve got to do is get down energy prices so that there\u2019s no need for this, so that Australians can afford to pay their energy bills instead of finding themselves in a situation where every Australian family, just about, is struggling with the cost of living and every Australian business is struggling with the cost of doing business,\u201d Ruston told Sky News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jim Chalmers has foreshadowed more \u201cdifficult decisions\u201d in next week\u2019s mid-year budget update after cabinet decided not to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[51,1700,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-619972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115683805600060107","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}