At the 2022 election, Labor's climate policy costings included a $275 reduction in average household energy bills by 2025. We're now in 2026. The Australian Energy Regulator's default market offer for 2025–26 is higher in every state than it was in 2022.

In Queensland, the DMO increased 20.8% in 2023, then a further 8.9% in 2024. The government's $300 energy rebate offset some of this — but that's a one-off payment, not a structural reduction in bills.

What are people actually paying? And what do you think went wrong with the modelling?

My quarterly electricity bill in 2022 was $380. Last quarter it was $510. That's a 34% increase. The $300 rebate helped for one quarter. The underlying rate is still higher.

I've done everything I can — LED lights throughout, a 6.6kW solar system, a heat pump hot water system. Without those investments, my bill would be over $700 a quarter. Most renters can't make those investments.

I rent. I can't install solar. I can't upgrade the hot water system. I'm stuck with whatever the landlord has, which is a 1990s resistive hot water system and no insulation.

My bill last winter was $680 for the quarter. I earn $58,000 a year. That's not sustainable. The energy rebate was $300 once. My bills are permanently higher.

The $275 modelling was based on assumptions about renewable energy penetration and wholesale price reductions that haven't materialised on the timeline projected. The energy transition is happening, but it's slower and more expensive than the 2022 modelling assumed.

The government's position is that bills would have been even higher without their policies. That may be true — but it's not what was promised, and it's not what voters were told.

Small business owner here. My commercial electricity contract renewed in January at 42 cents per kWh. In 2021 I was paying 22 cents. My energy bill has nearly doubled.

I've had to pass some of this on in prices, which I hate doing. But I can't absorb a 90% increase in one of my major input costs. The government talks about cost-of-living pressure on households — but businesses are facing the same pressures and they feed directly into the prices consumers pay.

I install solar for a living. Demand has never been higher — people are desperate to reduce their bills. But the feed-in tariff has been cut so many times that the economics of solar are now primarily about self-consumption, not export.

The grid is struggling to absorb midday solar generation. The transition to a renewables-heavy grid requires massive investment in storage and transmission that isn't happening fast enough. That's why bills are still high despite record renewable generation.