The Hon. Angus Taylor MP
Minister for Energy
The Morrison Government will assist small businesses across the country to manage and reduce their energy costs more effectively thanks to the Government’s new Business Energy Advice Program.
Following a competitive tender process, the NSW Business Chamber has been selected to deliver energy efficiency and retail market advice to small businesses through face-to-face interactions and via digital platforms.
The Chamber will implement a $10 million Energy Advisory Service that will provide trusted advice to thousands of small businesses across Australia on how to reduce their power use and better manage their energy bills.
The NSW Business Chamber is a multi-industry, peak business organisation that has proven ability to generate interest in energy advice and deliver services to small business. Rollout of the Energy Advisory Service will begin in April 2019.
The Advisory Service will be complemented by an energy benchmarking tool which will allow small businesses to compare their energy spend against their peers. The Government will partner with economics firm Alphabeta and Xero Small Business Insights which uses anonymised and aggregated data to provide a unique insight into the health of the small business economy.
Small and family businesses contribute hundreds of billions of dollars to the Australian economy and employ 5.7 million Australians. The Business Energy Advice Program builds on the Morrison Government’s strong record of support for small business, including taking steps to implement a default market offer to act as a price safety net for small businesses, and the $50 million Energy Efficient Communities Program, which is providing grants to support small businesses to upgrade their equipment to more energy efficient models.
When Labor was last in government, 519,000 jobs were lost in the small business sector. Independent modelling by BAEconomics shows that Bill Shorten’s economy wrecking Emissions Reduction Target will increase power bills by 20%, making balancing the books each month extremely difficult. Bill Shorten and the Labor Party simply cannot be trusted when it comes to supporting small and family businesses.
