The main focus of today’s bill is our government’s fantastic Victorian energy upgrade scheme. When I first saw that we were debating this bill today my actual first thought was, ‘Oh, this is going to be another amazing opportunity to highlight the incredible impact this program has had for Victorians.’ Whilst those opposite and their mates in Canberra are contemplating rolling out a $600 billion nuclear energy industry here in Australia and here in Victoria, we are getting on with delivering cheap and affordable renewable energy right across the state. With Victoria now smashing through our renewable energy targets, on top of that, the Victorian energy upgrades (VEU) program is a heavy part of reducing energy and utility bills for households and businesses right across this state.

Since the program was introduced by the Bracks government back in 2009 – it feels like a lifetime ago now – more than 2.4 million households and 179,000 businesses have taken up the program and installed discounted energy-efficient products through this program. That is a hell of a lot of people. In 2023 the program went all electric, and in just two years we have seen more than 19,000 reverse-cycle air conditioners and over 39,000 hot-water systems installed in households, and that is a saving of 28 million tonnes of emissions.

The best part about this program is that even if you do not participate, guess what, you are still going to benefit from this scheme. By reducing energy demand for households, these energy-efficient products put downward pressure on retail energy prices, and what we know is that for the past four years the program has saved Victorians around $3.8 billion in energy system costs. It is not just all about electricity, the scheme supports important things like water and gas usage as well.

Quite recently – and I love this story; these are two wonderful young women in my electorate – I was handed letters by two fantastic year 7 students from Sunshine College. I was there for an International Women’s Day morning tea, and Kiana and Alexandra had written me letters. They were learning about, of all things, sustainability and the environment as part of the year 7 curriculum. They had written a couple of letters to me, and I wrote back to them last week. They had a lot of questions and interest in how households could reduce their waste and energy usage.

One of these students came from Albion Primary School, which is a great local primary school in Albion. They have just been awarded their fifth star as part of our government’s ResourceSmart Schools Awards for energy sustainability. That program is all about doing things at schools like encouraging recycling. I know Albion Primary School was even encouraging the recycling of toothbrushes and toothpaste, which I thought was really clever because it was also encouraging kids to clean their teeth. What do you do with your toothbrush after it is a bit manky and needs to be replaced? You could take it to Albion Primary School, where they will recycle it for you. They had gone on from Albion Primary School, where they had learned great environmental sustainability habits as part of that program in that primary school, and in year 7 they were learning even more about how households could reduce their waste and energy usage.

I wrote to them. I just signed off the letters as of last week, and they go on for pages and pages because there is so much happening in this space. I was really keen to tell them all about the wonderful things that the Allan Labor government is doing to promote sustainability.

One of the things I told them about was the Victorian energy upgrades program and how households could reduce their water usage through this program by installing water-efficient showerheads. This was something that the girls were really interested in. I mention this because very soon Alexandra and Kiana will graduate, and they are going to live and they are going to work, hopefully, in our local community. They will be able to own or go ahead and rent their homes and maybe even run businesses of their own. They will be thinking about their own households and how they can be more energy efficient, not just to support the environment but also for their own cost of living. That is why a program like this one can make the changes they need for their own homes, and at a discounted price. It is better for the environment, and it is better for the hip pocket. Overall, that is what this program does for Victorians. What we do know on this side of the chamber is that it is overwhelmingly successful and overwhelmingly embraced by the local community. The local community loves these kinds of programs.

Late last year our government announced a review of the program, ensuring that it can continue to support Victoria’s transition to electric utilities. What this bill actually does is give households and the industry the certainty they need to continue taking part in this transition whilst this review is underway, because this program is an adaptive feature of our state’s climate change and energy policy agenda and one that directly impacts households. We know it is working. We know the public love it. They use it, they buy into it and it is working. What we do want to see is how we can make the scheme even stronger to go ahead and support this important work of making households and, importantly, businesses so much more energy efficient so they can go ahead and reduce their bills.

At the end of the day I do think the two of them go hand in hand. I am out in Williams Landing on a regular basis, and I remember a visit by the minister and the Premier on a Sunday morning. We were out in Williams Landing. There was a great young couple who just bought a Tesla, their first Tesla, and they invited us into their home. It was interesting to see how it was all switched on in the garage, as I am someone who does not yet own one. They also took us through why it was important for them to have solar panels on their roof, why they bought that Tesla and why they were thinking about the emissions that they as a couple were emitting and looking at reducing them. They were very much aware of their impact on climate change and wanted to reduce their footprint. But also what was fantastic, and the Premier and minister and I went through it, is they pulled out one of their bills and started going through it and showing us the cost saving. One of the things the Premier asked this couple about was that it was a lot of money to have saved. They had saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars. She said to them, ‘What are you going to spend it on?’ They were going to go on a holiday together, which I just thought was wonderful. Some of these incredible initiatives that this government over its time has gone ahead and rolled out here in Victoria do have real monetary impact, and it is wonderful to be able to see that.

One of the first things that the bill is going to do is extend this program for another 20 years, which is fantastic to know. It will still be in place. That is going to go all the way to 2045. It means that even though we will be reviewing the program and continuing to do that, Victorians can, most importantly, continue to take part in the program and continue to upgrade their homes, giving certainty to both them and the industry, supporting hundreds if not thousands of jobs right across Victoria, including plumbers, electricians and other trades who support this program.

This bill makes a number of important changes to the operation of the VEU program. We know that it is a program that Victorians have wanted to see in place. They have embraced it, continue to use it and have reduced their footprint when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, but they have also saved so much on their utility bills. At the end of the day, this is just another way that our government is helping just regular folks with the cost of living by making sure there is more money in the hip pocket to do the things that they want to do, whether it is having a holiday or whether it is going out for dinner or ordering a pizza on a Friday night. This is just another way we can help with the cost of living. This is a great bill, and that is exactly why I commend it to the house.