E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
BECKENHAM, WA
TUESDAY, 28TH APRIL 2026
Subjects: Home Energy Upgrade Fund, Cheaper Home Battery Program, household energy costs, AUKUS, fuel security, first responders, Fortem Wellbeing Hub, emergency management.
ZANETA MASCARENHAS: My name is Zaneta Mascarenhas, and I’m here with the fabulous Assistant Minister, Josh Wilson, and also we’re here at Denis’s home in Beckenham. Beckenham is an incredible pocket of Perth, and as we’re driving here, we saw so many solar panels as well coming up the road, but what we’ve seen is Denis has had the opportunity to transform his home. I will hand over to the Assistant Minister, Josh Wilson, to talk a little bit more about the program.
JOSH WILSON: Thanks Zaneta and good morning everyone. It’s great to be here at Denis’s house in Beckenham. We’re grateful to him for hosting us today, and he’s benefited from the Albanese Government’s Home Energy Upgrade Fund. We’ve hit a milestone. We’ve hit 10,000 upgrades nationwide through the Home Energy Upgrade Fund. It’s one of the measures that we introduced when we created Australia’s first National Energy Performance Strategy, and it’s helping householders like Denis to reduce their bills, to take advantage of renewable energy, cheap and available solar energy to power their homes and reduce costs. And we are trying to do that at a time of cost pressures around the country in a year in which we’ve seen additional pressures as a result of the war in the Middle East and an unprecedented global fuel crisis.
We know that everything we can do to help reduce that pressure makes a difference, and we’ve done that in just about every area of Australian life, by increasing access to bulk billing by delivering tax cuts, there’ll be another tax cut on the first of July, by reducing the cost of medicines, by reducing the cost of childcare, by seeing real wages grow. All of those things make a difference, but certainly reducing household energy costs makes a difference. And the Home Energy Upgrade Fund is one of the ways we’re doing that, and it ties in with a number of our other very effective programs, obviously, the Cheaper Home Battery Program, which has kicked off a home storage revolution more than 300,000 households Australia wide now with a battery to help capture that excess solar from the middle of the day and redeploy it at the peak time when costs are higher. That makes a difference to them. It also makes a difference to the system as a whole. We’ve added seven gigawatt hours of new storage under that program, and that is bringing system costs down, and as a result, there’s the indication that actually retail prices will follow wholesale prices and drop further.
We’ve also supported households by expanding access to EVs, and that’s particularly pertinent in the context of the global fuel crisis. We had a coalition government for nine years that didn’t care about Australia’s energy circumstances and did nothing to improve our resilience in almost every area. Of course, they didn’t even have a National Energy Policy throughout that time, but they consistently poo-pooed and dismissed the value of electric vehicles. We knew that that wasn’t right or fair. We knew that Australians ought to have the opportunity to choose EVs, and we’ve made some big changes. Obviously, with the first National EV Strategy, then the changes to improve vehicle emission standards. That saw a tripling of the availability of EV models, and it’s seen the number of EVs on Australian roads grow by 500% since 2022. In fact, when we were first elected, one in 25 new vehicles purchased was an EV, earlier this year, it’s been around one in six or one in seven. And for every household that is able to purchase an EV, they then get to use their home solar and perhaps their home battery, to give them very, very cheap transport costs because they’re using solar energy rather than having to go to the petrol station.
But again, as with the Home Energy Upgrade Fund, it’s not just an improvement for the individual householder. It actually improves the system as a whole, because for every Australian who doesn’t need petrol, that means there’s more petrol and more supply for other Australians. And that is at the heart of what we’ve been doing in response to the fuel crisis, making sure there’s stable supply, making sure that, in fact, as it stands, from the update that Minister Bowen gave on Saturday, we actually have more fuel stocks in terms of petrol, diesel and AV gas or jet fuel than we did when the war began, and at the same time, we’ve put downward pressure on prices by having the temporary removal of fuel excise, the arrangement with the states to take off the GST, removal of the heavy vehicle charge.
So we are focusing on taking cost pressures off Australian households in every way that we can. We do have a particular focus on energy costs, both at the household level, in terms of electricity, for heating, warming and cooling, but also for transport, as we are doing in a whole range of ways, we think that that is the responsible approach to the circumstances that people face at the time of a global energy crisis because of the war in the Middle East. But I’m happy to take some questions about this program and how households like Denis’s around the country are benefiting from the Home Energy Upgrade Fund.
REPORTER: When did the fund launch? And how does it exactly work? How can people access it?
WILSON: So the Home Energy Upgrade Fund was part of the measures that came out of that National Energy Performance Strategy in the middle of 2024. It involves a billion dollars that’s provided from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in partnership with lenders. Lenders like Brighte who’ve been part of Denis’s upgrade, but also Plico, and then traditional lenders, Westpac and Commonwealth and ING. So $400 million of funds from the CEFC have been extended and then matched by $400 million from those private lenders, and that is extending discounted green finance for Australians who want to take advantage of cheaper solar and, of course, cheaper home batteries through that program in order to give themselves that energy independence and reduce their costs.
REPORTER: Understand there’s been $400 million already made available. How much of that $400 million has actually been accessed?
WILSON: Off the top of my head, I don’t know the number, but we’ve hit the 10,000 upgrade mark. It’s still early days with that program, and obviously only 400 of the $1 billion so far has been extended as part of those arrangements, but there are further arrangements in train, and we expect that to grow. And we know that Australians see, through the cheaper home battery program and through the present circumstances, the advantages that come from taking control of your own energy destiny, really. And we know that if a household goes from having no energy performance measures, and then getting insulation, solar batteries and potentially an EV that the cost savings get up around the $4,500 per annum mark when you make those kinds of upgrades.
REPORTER: How many upgrades have there been in WA? I understand it’s not as many as Queensland and some other states over East which are saying 3000 upgrades.
WILSON: Yeah, well we probably haven’t had our share. You know, we sort of use the 10% rule here in WA, so you’d like to think we’d had about 1000 and it’s not quite at that mark. I think there’s a few reasons for that. WA does have a battery rebate alongside the Commonwealth’s Cheaper Home Battery Program. So there are some things here. It’s also the case that WA has been ahead of the pack in terms of solar uptake, and it’s the case that other jurisdictions probably have a little bit of catch up, but we want to promote this opportunity for households, amongst all of the other kinds of support that are there for them to consider having access to cheaper finance in order to have those immediate cost benefits, because a lot of these measures do pay for themselves, and as I explained, you know, Denis will have experienced this, if you go from not having solar and a battery, the change is quite dramatic, and it will literally be from one bill to the next.
REPORTER: What have some of the most popular technologies been? Have you got any stats around that that people have been switching to?
WILSON: Well, solar and batteries are probably at the top of the list because they’re the most dramatic form of distributed energy shift. But in jurisdictions where people have an energy assessment and then get a consolidated upgrade, it will inevitably include other things, and insulation features pretty highly too, because if you have an uninsulated house, providing good quality insulation is probably the most single cost effective dramatic measure you can make to ensure your house that will be naturally warmer in cold weather, naturally cooler in hot weather, and just you get better value in terms of using any heating or air conditioning when your house is properly insulated.
REPORTER: In terms of trying to increase the uptake in WA, does something need to change in terms of the marketing of it, the outreach, anything like that?
WILSON: Well, part of what I do in my role, and part of being able to talk to you today, is to raise awareness of these things. I know that there are lots of businesses in Western Australia who are part of that. And I think that the lenders themselves, whether it’s Brighte, Plico or Westpac, ING, Commonwealth, are also reaching out to to their customers and potentially to new customers, making them aware that that discounted finance is available to them. But we recognise that people have busy full on lives, and so it’s not something that every household can consider doing from one week to the next. We expect that the momentum around this change will continue to grow, because our experience in Australia is we’ve gone from at the time of the beginning of the Rudd Gillard Government, when only 1 in 1000 Australian households had home solar through the support that that government put in place and that we have now followed after the nine years of waste and neglect under the coalition, we’ve got to the point where 1 in 3 Australian households have solar and in some jurisdictions, like WA, it’s closer to 2 in 5. So we know that Australians themselves see the benefit of being energy independent and having their costs come down, we expect that that will continue in terms of distributed energy, and we know that there’s a lot of room to go when it comes to the electrification of transport.
REPORTER: Just by accessing the discounted finance and making those switches. How much could a typical household be saving every year?
WILSON: Well, we say that if you don’t have solar or batteries, and you go to both, it can be around the $3,000 mark. If you have an EV as part of that, you’re probably getting closer to somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000 in cost savings. And that’s pretty significant. And when we’re experiencing the present circumstances, a global fuel crisis and unusually high petrol and diesel prices. Then, frankly, you know, the advantage of being an EV rather than having a petrol or diesel vehicle grows
REPORTER: We’ve seen the previous budgets has been measures like battery rebates and energy rebates as well to help people save money. Can we see something similar in this year’s budget?
WILSON: Well, I think people should look at the range of programs that we’ve put in place since 22.
REPORTER: Will there be any new measures though in next month’s budget?
WILSON: As anyone will say about the budget, we’ll wait until the budget but I think this is really an opportunity to remind people that, in addition to the support for solar, the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, which only started on the 1st of July, the Home Energy Upgrade Fund, which we’re talking about today, provides concessional finance, from the 1st of July, we will be able to extend home energy ratings to existing homes previously, that’s only applied to new builds. That means that people with older homes will be able to consider the nature of their energy performance. And we welcome the fact that some states and territories are considering making the disclosure of home energy ratings something that happens as a matter of course at point of sale or lease. We suspect that as time goes on, that community awareness of what a difference a good energy performance household makes in terms of costs, will grow, and therefore the interest in taking up the range of measures, including the very, very significant support from the Albanese Government will grow as well.
DENIS PACK (HOMEOWNER): Financially, it was a bit of a burden. Do I want my fixed comforts? Yes, but yeah, the amount of money to pay for those comforts is a little bit too much.
REPORTER: And how much was that bill?
DENIS PACK (HOMEOWNER): During summer, it was $876.
REPORTER: For what period of time?
PACK: Two months. So we’ve got insulation, and it’s interesting, but no solar, no battery during that period.
REPORTER: And so what have we got behind us here?
PACK: So now we’ve got six point something kilowatts of solar and 15 kilowatt hours of battery, and if we have some nice sunny days, unlike the last two days, there’s enough charge in that to go overnight without pulling any additional load from the grid.
REPORTER: Would you’ve been able to make that upgrade without the loan?
PACK: No, the loan was enabling for that to happen.
REPORTER: And I guess, what would your advice be to some other people, maybe potentially looking to switch over to some of these options?
PACK: Do your finances work out what your two monthly spend on electricity is and see what size system has made a dramatic impact. I can see but that my next bill will be a fraction of what I used to have. I just have to make sure it’s nice, clear, sunny skies.
REPORTER: And I guess, you know, cost of living it is, you know, we are really feeling the pinch at the moment, just just making that change. And what difference will this make to you? And you know, your budget?
PACK: It’s going to be neutral at the moment, because when I put financing onto it, so the energy savings that I’m receiving is paying for the upgrade. So I’ve done that on purpose, so then I get a little bit more life out of the solar and the batteries. It’s like all things, they’re only good for a certain amount of time. Just like your car. You don’t want to be driving your car for 35 years.
REPORTER: How long have you been living here?
PACK: Just moved in so just gone past six months.
REPORTER: Just on AUKUS and there’s the British parliamentary committee that has been a bit critical of the role out there. It says AUKUS has already started to hit bumps in the road. Says the opportunities AUKUS presents are great, but so are the challenges it poses. While the promise of AUKUS remains, our inquiry uncovered shortcomings and failings that place it under threat. You’ve been critical of the AUKUS deal in the past. Does this add to your concern?
WILSON: Well, look, you know, AUKUS is a very large and complex arrangement that’s going to run over a long period of time, and there will be these kinds of concerns from time to time. We’ve seen them already in the past. I’ll leave detailed comment on those matters to the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Defence Materiel. But the truth is, with matters of this kind of complexity, there inevitably will be issues that arise from time to time, and there’s nothing particularly strange about that. I’ve made my views in the past about the acquisition of nuclear submarines clear, but the AUKUS arrangement is a larger set of arrangements between ourselves and the US and the UK. And I don’t think that the fact that these matters come up and get considered in the ordinary way, as they have done in the US, as they are now doing in the UK and here in Australia, is anything out of the ordinary.
REPORTER: Is there support for this deal in your electorate of Fremantle?
WILSON: Well, there are lots of views around the country. My electorate has a long-standing commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Those are issues that I take very seriously and have been part of my work as well. So I understand the concern that exists, and it’s frankly, a justified concern in relation to any nuclear matter. Nuclear technology is something that we need to be very careful about and so I don’t have any problem representing a community that sees that clearly.
REPORTER: Do you think we’ll get these submarines once the deal’s done?
WILSON: Well, as I say, like you know it’s an arrangement made between Australia, the UK, and the US. Three long-standing friends and partners with very considerable capacity for making these arrangements and delivering upon them. So I’m not sure on what basis people would question the capacity that our three nations have to work in a constructive way towards those things, but obviously, you know, it’s a portfolio area in which the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Defence Materiel, are much better-placed to comment than I am.
REPORTER:
What’s your reaction to the coalition’s newly unveiled fuel security plan?
WILSON: Well, I think it’s passing strange that you’ve got the same outfit that neglected Australia’s fuel security comprehensively for nine years now suddenly purporting to be the Oracle in terms of the answer. I think earlier today, Angus Taylor was trying to claim credit for the fact that we only have two refineries. I mean, if you left a bloke looking after your chicken coop with six chickens in it, and you came back and he wanted you to pat him on the back, because there’s still two chickens there, you’d say, well done, Angus, good job. I mean that is ridiculous. They should focus on providing more constructive support for the national response to this crisis, when, frankly, most of the time what they have looked to do is complain and undermine the national interest and sometimes even to revel in the difficult circumstances that Australians are facing. More often than not, they seem pleased when we face tough times, rather than being constructive and rather than having a certain amount of self-awareness and reflection on the fact that, for nine years, they didn’t manage to have an energy policy that they thought fuel storage in Texas was a good idea, and they saw four out of six refineries close.
REPORTER: Is it telling that the state government is now taking matters into their own hands, getting their own stockpile in the states north and south and even Kwinana? Or does the federal government need to step up to allay concerns?
WILSON: Oh no, we are working collaboratively through the National Cabinet process and through the National Fuel Supply Task Force Coordinator that Minister Bowen and the Prime Minister helped put in place. States and territories have always had involvement in these kinds of arrangements, and so it’s appropriate that any state and territory is part of the work that we are doing together in the context of a global fuel crisis.
REPORTER: Can Australians expect any similar ambition to what the coalition’s putting together to increase fuel storage in the upcoming budget?
WILSON: Well, I’m not going to comment on what might be in the budget that will be for the Treasurer on the night of the budget. I think Australians would have some sense of reassurance that over the last couple of months of this crisis, that the Australian government has done everything in its power all day, every day, to ensure security of supply in the first instance. As Minister Bowen said in his update on the weekend, we actually have more fuel stocks now than we than we did when the war began. And just in the last week, the forecast over the next four weeks has improved from 4.1 billion litres incoming to 4.6 billion litres incoming, which is another 500 million litres of diesel, knowing that we do want to be able to target that to rural and regional communities that have faced distribution challenges. We will continue to take all of the available measures, engaging regionally, securing supply, providing additional export finance so that the fuel importers can do that, relaxing temporarily the fuel standards and the flash point settings, all of those things that have helped put us in a stable supply position, noting that we want the war in the Middle East to come to an end as soon as possible, because it’s only by a return to those normal trading and maritime navigation circumstances that the world will emerge from the present supply squeeze back towards normality.
REPORTER: Is the government willing to consider another refinery?
WILSON: Well, as Minister Bowen has said, it’s much easier to make sure that you maintain refinery capacity before they close. So it would have been much better if 4 out of our 6 refineries didn’t close during the nine years of the coalition. In some cases, since the closure of those refineries, it’s not that they have simply just closed the door and locked the key and you can go back in and make them start up the next day. The one thing that I note about Angus Taylor’s proposition today is this sort of not very well detailed or costed commitment to increase storage. One of the challenges you have is when your refinery capacity decreases, that storage challenge becomes harder because refined fuel doesn’t have the shelf life that crude has. So when we’ve gone down to two refineries, actually increasing in country, storage is more of a challenge because you can’t store refined fuel for as long. You would have thought that a responsible coalition government might have paid more attention to that when they were at the wheel.
REPORTER: Just a quick question on the wellbeing hub for first responders this morning. So that’s been open. How has that been opened for and how successful has it been?
WILSON: Yeah, well, so that’s a great question. I mean, Fortem operate that wellbeing hub. And as a Western Australian who’s the Assistant Minister for Emergency Management, I’m proud that it’s a national hub that functions out of WA. They’ve supported 25,000 first responders and their families over the few years that the hub has been in operation. It has been supported with $20 million of funding from the Albanese Government. Today, we were there to launch a new feature of their services, which is this mobile trailer, recognising that being able to provide support and engagement and mental and emotional health services by sort of innovative communication technology is a good thing, but so too is actual on the ground presence, and that new trailer will allow Fortem to do that work for our first responder community much better. And we see very clearly at a time when climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of those events, the need to care for the carers. We’re lucky in Australia, it’s an expression of our character that there are so many people around the nation who, in both professional and volunteer capacities, run towards danger, give of themselves, in addition to all of the things in their lives, care and compassion and expertise and effort and bravery for communities that are facing the toughest circumstances as a result of disasters. One thing that is really clear, we need to make sure that those people are looked after, and so that $20 million worth of funding to Fortem is part of really looking out for the mental, emotional and family wellbeing of people who do so much for us in our greatest hours of need.
REPORTER: Just quickly on that trailer. So do we know which rural regional areas and how often?
WILSON: Well, Fortem, would be better placed to tell you. I mean, I know that they want to certainly get out into the regions. They want to be out in the Wheatbelt and in the Great Southern because those are communities that experience bushfire and other kinds of storm events. I was fortunate to be up in both Exmouth and Carnarvon just a couple of Mondays ago with the Premier visiting those affected communities. And it was really uplifting to see that there were disaster responders that had come up from Perth because they are part of an employment arrangement where their employer gives them volunteer days off, and they choose to use that to go up and help communities in need. There were also some first responders from Queensland who were marking their the sort of 50th anniversary of their particular Rural Fire Service. And they were there helping Western Australian communities in Carnarvon and Exmouth. We know that that particular undertaking is of vital importance. It will only grow in the circumstances that we face as a result of dangerous climate change. And we are very, very focused. I know my lead Minister, Kristy McBain, is very, very focused on making sure that we support them.
ENDS
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