Treasurer Jim Chalmers has defended giving every household $300 in energy bill relief instead of means testing the package, saying it avoids the construction of a new system. Senator Jacqui Lambie said she and others on similar pay packets don’t need the energy bill relief. But the treasurer told ABC the package is “overwhelmingly about the millions of Australians doing it tough”.
We think that’s a good way to help make things easier.” When asked why Labor did not create a new system, the treasurer said a lot of the relief is delivered through energy retailers that did not have access to information that could be used to means test people. “They don’t have information about people’s incomes and so you would have to take a long time and spend a lot of money and effort to design a system where the retailers access to people’s income information,” Chalmers said.