Australia news live: Albanese to target rightwing ‘axis of grievance’ at NSW Labor conference; first east coast bird flu case confirmed

The Coalition is complaining about Australian electricity bills rising under the Albanese government, saying Queensland and NSW residents have seen their bills go up 50% in some cases since Labor returned to power in 2022.

The opposition shared figures with journalists ahead of the shadow energy spokesperson, Dan Tehan, appearing on Insiders earlier today, claiming median Queensland power bills have gone up as much as 54% in the last four years.

In NSW, the Coalition analysis is that the median bill for some residents could have gone up as much as 50%.

In other states, the Coalition says median bills have gone up by lower amounts, including 40% in South Australia, 26% in Victoria and 23% in Tasmania.

While the Coalition is again pointing to the Labor government’s promises of a $275 reduction in power bills ahead of the 2022 election, that time period has also included the global energy crisis from Russia’s war on Ukraine, as well as the impact of expected inflation gradually increasing prices across the economy.

We heard Tehan on Insiders earlier, but the energy minister, Chris Bowen, also blamed the Coalition for part of the price rise. He told Sky:

double quotation mark That’s the result of an international energy crisis, particularly around Ukraine that we had to deal with. It’s the result of 10 years of denial and delay.

My final point is the irony and hypocrisy of the Coalition quoting a figure like that which includes a 20% price rise that Angus Taylor changed the law to hide in the most disgraceful act of an energy minister in living energy.

He knew that prices were going up 20%. He didn’t want to tell the Australian people that before the 2022 election so he changed the law to hide it so it was released weeks after the election, not days before.

That was a reference to the controversial change, under the former Coalition government, where a key electricity pricing update was delayed until after the election.