Jim Chalmers has said that the federal government’s electricity bill assistance will not be continued into the following year. Instead, the $75 quarterly discount for all households will expire in December as scheduled. The treasurer described this as a “hard” choice made by the cabinet in response to “pressure on the budget.”
“We’ve been openly with people and said that these were never going to be an ongoing part of the budget,” he stated. Beginning in the middle of 2023, the subsidy was applied directly to energy bills and supplemented by state and territory government subsidies. Additionally, certain small enterprises were qualified.
With a rate hold largely anticipated, the decision is made as the Reserve Bank of Australia’s monetary policy board convenes for its last meeting of the year. With underlying inflation at 3.3% in the most recent update, efforts to bring inflation back to the bank’s desired range of two to three percent have stalled in recent months.
Last week, RBA Board member and Treasury Secretary Jenny Wilkinson cautioned against drawing hasty judgments about somewhat high inflation, pointing out that it had been lower than anticipated earlier in the year.
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