I’m pleased to be able to advise that next week, cheques will begin to be sent out to eligible recipients of the Hodgman Liberal Government’s Special Energy Bonus.
The energy bonus is a one-off payment of $125 per household to Pensioner Concession Card and Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holders to help cover their energy bills.
This is the Hodgman Government’s Tasmania-first energy policy in action.
We have made a commitment to keep electricity prices low for Tasmanians, and we want to pass on some of the windfall gains from Tasmania’s energy businesses back into the pockets of households that are doing it tough.
Over the next couple of weeks cheques will be posted to all those households which were registered for an electricity concession by virtue of holding a Pensioner Concession Card and having those details registered with Aurora.
The application process for other eligible groups including Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holders has also been open for several weeks now and applications are coming in.
This is just one way the Liberal Government is helping households combat cost of living pressures.
Under Labor and the Greens, people were struggling to keep up with energy payments after power prices went up by a whopping 65 per cent over 7 years. Labor and the Greens raked in massive dividends without even a thought of giving something back to households.
It was incorrectly stated today that the cost of administering the bonus payment and issuing the cheques was half a million dollars. The actual cost is estimated to be up to $100,000. Cheques are being used because Aurora Energy has advised that the billing system wasn’t able to process the payments in the time frame required.