{"id":104163,"date":"2025-10-27T22:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T22:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/104163\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T22:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T22:47:08","slug":"power-prices-to-rise-secret-department-documents-warn-the-queenslander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/104163\/","title":{"rendered":"Power prices to rise, secret department documents warn \u2013 The Queenslander"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                                    Zac de Silva |<br \/>\n                                October 28, 2025\n            <\/p>\n<p>                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/cfcc2f7d-59d0-4bf3-971f-d6f9962e2a5d-1024x576-c-default.jpg\" alt=\"Energy costs are regularly ranked as the top concern for Australian households, documents show.&#10;\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                    Energy costs are regularly ranked as the top concern for Australian households, documents show.<\/p>\n<p>Household power prices are expected to rise this financial year and Australia\u2019s emissions reductions will need to become much more ambitious, secret advice to the nation\u2019s energy minister shows.<\/p>\n<p>The federal government has handed over briefing notes written by Chris Bowen\u2019s department at the start of this parliamentary term, after a months-long fight to keep them under wraps.<\/p>\n<p>The heavily redacted documents warn Mr Bowen that energy costs are regularly ranked as the top concern for Australian households behind food and grocery prices.<\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/newsroom.aap.com.au\/api\/v1\/assets\/2025102809100\/e6307172-7f64-40a6-a505-e6d1287f289a.jpg?item_id=urn%3Anewsml%3Aaap.com.au%3A2025-10-28T07%3A27%3A01.235465%3Adf25f26e-0793-411e-8a48-4ed530fc3006\" alt=\"Power cables\" id=\"editor_0\"\/>A draft of the Default Market Offer points to further increases in retail electricity prices. (Lukas Coch\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGovernment policies have provided temporary energy bill relief to households and small businesses,\u201d an unredacted portion of the report reads.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStill, the draft <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aer.gov.au\/industry\/registers\/resources\/reviews\/default-market-offer-prices-2025-26\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Default Market Offer<\/a> points to a further significant increase in retail electricity prices next financial year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Default Market Offer is a set of baseline power prices for south east Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia, set out by the nation\u2019s energy regulator.<\/p>\n<p>Under the most recent version for this financial year, which was published in late May, prices were expected to increase between half a per cent and nearly 10 per cent depending on the state.<\/p>\n<p>A draft version was published in March, before the 2025 election.<\/p>\n<p>The documents also warn a \u201cstrong push\u201d will be needed to finalise Australia\u2019s climate commitments, and more work is needed to hit its carbon pollution goals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEmission reductions need to accelerate rapidly to meet the 2030 target,\u201d the briefing note says.<\/p>\n<p>It calls for full and timely implementation of Labor\u2019s renewable energy policies to make Australia a \u201cpragmatic climate leader.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since Mr Bowen received the documents, the government has announced its 2035 target, aiming to reduce carbon pollution by between 62 and 70 per cent compared to 2005 levels.<\/p>\n<p>            AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zac de Silva | October 28, 2025 Energy costs are regularly ranked as the top concern for Australian&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-104163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}