Member for Mallee Dr Anne Webster has taken Energy Minister Chris Bowen to task for his spin on Mallee battery rollout numbers, as the cost of the Government’s home battery scheme blows out.

“I had to call out the Minister’s nonsense claiming Mallee has a home battery rollout ‘6 times Melbourne’ – which is very sneaky semantics – the fact is that the leafy suburbs of Melbourne are getting far more batteries, at our expense through taxpayer subsidies,” Dr Webster said.

In Parliament on Wednesday, Dr Webster stated before Question Time the Minister ‘likes to play secret squirrels on this stuff’ and exposed that Mallee ranks 33rd out of 38 Victorian federal electorates for battery rollout, while the electorate of Melbourne the Minister was referring to ranks bottom, at 38th.

“He's actually referring to the electorate of Melbourne, which is full of high-rise apartments and rentals—households with little to no ability to install solar or batteries. The minister is comparing apples with cucumbers,” Dr Webster told Parliament.

Video of Dr Webster’s contribution and Minister Bowen’s claims appears here.

“Mallee residents are getting shocking Victorian feed-in tariffs and tell me they’d love to have a home battery, but cannot afford to access the scheme.  Hence, we are cross-subsidising wealthier people who can afford to access it.”

The Coalition in Senate Estimates revealed that Mallee residents are also cross-subsidising substandard batteries at a rapidly expanding rate, with the original funding for Minister Bowen’s ‘remarkably successful policy’ blowing out from $2.3 billion to a staggering $8.5 billion.

Officials from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water confirmed the massive 269 per cent cost blowout under questioning from the Opposition in Senate Estimates this week. The Program running out of money, the Albanese Government quietly changed the Program’s regulations to enable the Clean Energy Regulator to disburse money to the runaway scheme.

In a further embarrassment for Chris Bowen - and a serious warning for Australian households - the Clean Energy Regulator revealed this month that 63.2 per cent of inspected batteries had been found to be substandard. The Regulator defines “substandard” installations as those which do “not meet one or more clauses in Australian Standards or industry guidelines.”

“So much for the cheapest form of electricity, under Labor it is more like cheap and nasty,” Dr Webster said.

“In the real world, a budget overrun of more than 269 per cent would get you sacked; under Labor, the Treasurer gives the Minister a green light to spend even more.

“The same Minister has been under intense scrutiny this week on a $150 million climate conference spend.

“The Coalition has written to the Auditor-General today to request an urgent audit into the Program.”