Anthony Albanese will give the strongest signal yet that the government will extend energy price relief, as he declares that small businesses and families will be “front and centre” in the May budget.
In an address to the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia (Cosboa) on Thursday, the prime minister will say that the cost of living measure has “helped people under pressure – and it helped fight inflation”, signalling the support of up to $650 to 1m small businesses and 5m families will probably be rolled over in the May budget.
Albanese will also speak about the need to encourage uptake of rooftop solar, and take aim at the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, for trying to enlist small business into his “politics of negativity and conflict”.
The government announced in December 2022 that it would deliver energy price relief through a system of caps on coal and gas prices, and $1.5bn of consumer rebates from 1 July 2023. The measure benefited small businesses and households in receipt of government payments or who hold concession cards.
Despite falling power prices relative to the heights of 2022, Labor has been criticised by the opposition for failing to stand by a pre-election estimate that showed the increased uptake of renewables could save households $275 by 2025.
On Thursday Albanese will say that “our government understands that for small business – as for Australian families – energy bills remain a source of financial pressure”.
“That’s why the energy bill relief package I negotiated with the states and territories delivered up to $650 in savings for around 1 million small businesses, along with 5 million families,” Albanese will say, according to an advance copy of his speech seen by Guardian Australia.
“Helping Australian families and small family businesses with their energy bills was a key priority in last year’s budget.
“It helped people under pressure – and it helped fight inflation.
“And as we put together next month’s budget, small businesses and families will again be front and centre in our thinking.”
Albanese will say small business has “consistently led the nation in embracing solar power to take control of their bills”, with nearly one in three businesses using rooftop solar.
He will say that the figure is a “great start” and that the number will rise with “right investments and support and the continuing advances in technology”.
He will also deride the opposition’s energy policies, saying Dutton has a “plan to have a plan to build nuclear reactors somewhere up and down the east coast, some time before 2050 at a cost somewhere in the hundreds of billions of dollars”.
Albanese will also take aim at Dutton for his speech to Cosboa, in which “he warned you about being ‘supine’ and ‘silent’”.
“Demanding that you criticise the government more loudly and more often. Trying to drag you into his politics of negativity and conflict.”
Albanese will commit to keep working with Cosboa “on industrial relations, on energy, right across the economic agenda”, arguing that unlike the Coalition “we don’t think cooperation is a sign of weakness”.
After last week’s commitment of $1bn to manufacture solar panels in Australia, Albanese says Australia needs to “show the dynamism and drive of small business” to compete and succeed in a competitive global environment.
“[We need] the resourcefulness to anticipate change – and shape it,” he will say. “The courage to invest in new ideas and new industries, the ambition for our people and our products to win in the world.
“This is what I mean when I talk about a future made in Australia. Investing in our economic self-reliance and lifting our nation up the international value chain.”
In addition to energy price relief, Labor has restructured the stage-three tax cuts to benefit low- and middle-income earners.
After it raised jobseeker and commonwealth rent assistance in the 2023 budget, the Albanese government is likely to face renewed calls from the economic inclusion advisory committee to further improve the adequacy of those payments.
