Acid Alice

CHRIS BOWEN PROMISED HIS BATTERY REBATE WOULD COST $2.3 BILLION. IT'S NOW $7.2 BILLION, AND POWER PRICES ROSE 12.8% IN A YEAR. This week the Energy Minister posted that scrapping his Cheaper Home Batteries Program is "anti-suburbs, anti-regions" and blamed the Coalition's "denial and delay". So I checked his promises. The promise. In April 2025 Labor said $2.3 billion would deliver over one million batteries by 2030, saving a solar home up to $1,100 a year. The cost. By December the money was running out because people were buying super-sized batteries. Bowen tipped in nearly $5 billion more. It's now about $7.2 billion over four years, three times the promise. The safety. The Clean Energy Regulator inspected 1,278 installs and found 60.8% substandard, mostly labelling, and 1.2% unsafe. The suburbs. Researchers found the richest city postcodes with high solar got 912 more batteries each than middle-income postcodes. Renters who don't own the roof miss out. The bills. Electricity prices rose 12.8% in the year to September as Commonwealth bill rebates ran out. This is the government that promised a $275 cut by 2025. The grid. AEMO's latest plan has the grid at 75% renewables by 2030 if delivery stays constrained, short of Labor's 82% target. Same standard. Bowen counts 22 failed Coalition energy policies. Snowy 2.0 was announced by the Coalition in 2017 at $2 billion. It's now on Bowen's watch, at $22.2 billion, finishing late 2029. And the Coalition wants to scrap the battery rebate without saying what it would offer instead. In fairness, more than 500,000 batteries are now installed, the unsafe problems were in the installs not the batteries, and stored solar can ease peak demand for everyone. But a rebate that tripled in cost while bills rose 12.8% isn't a win. Bowen, publish what it's actually saved households. Same standard, every side. Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation. What's your thoughts…? Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺 Sources: Chris Bowen, social media post, Oct 2026; ALP, Labor to deliver one million energy bill busting batteries, 6 Apr 2025 (alp.org.au); RenewEconomy, Another $5 billion tipped into Cheaper Home Batteries, 13 Dec 2025; Clean Energy Regulator inspections, Jul 2025 to Apr 2026, via The Conversation (SBS), 19 Apr 2026; Longden and Das, working paper, via The Conversation (Yahoo News), 11 May 2026; ABS Monthly CPI, Sep 2026, via Savings.com.au, 28 Oct 2026; AEMO, 2026 Integrated System Plan, via RenewEconomy, 25 Jun 2026; Snowy Hydro cost reassessment, via ESD News, 23 Oct 2026; Energy-Storage.news, Program passes 500,000 installations; The Driven, 28 Oct 2026. Cost multiple: author's calculation.