But Dick was quick to defend the measures when asked if they might instead contribute to inflation.
“The federal Treasury has made it clear that making sure we deliver cost-of-living relief through electricity rebates is disinflationary,” he said.
“Of all the basket of goods and services that makes up CPI,electricity pricing is one of those,so if you’re reducing electricity prices across the board,that reduces the impact on CPI.”
When further pressed on whether giving an electricity rebate would enable people to spend money on other things,and therefore contribute to inflation,Dick said direct cash rebates were inflationary,but reducing the price of electricity via a rebate was not.
“It depends on whether they want to use that money to allocate it to a different purpose – to things they want to purchase – or whether they want to just take it off their power bills,so we’ll let Queenslanders decide,” he said.
Here is how the budget will help Queenslanders save money.
Electricity rebates