Reupping this from Greg Jericho earlier in the day:

Today very much is the day for the Liberal Party throwing around numbers that don’t actually mesh with reality (that’s very polite way of saying they are total crap)

We’ve already dealt with the lie that grocery prices have gone up 30% under the ALP govt (they haven’t – it’s 12% on average), but we also have the line that people are paying $1,300 more for their power bills than they were under the Morrison govt.

This one is a bit tougher to work out because they are not just talking about an increase they are also throwing in some very dodgy maths.

Here’s the Liberal’s Ted O’Brien this morning on ABC:

“Instead, power bills have gone up by $1,300. If you look at the default market offer that comes out each year, what you see is increases since Labor came to office of well over $1,000 and they promised you a reduction of $275. So, what you have, including here, I’m in Sydney today, you have people in Western Sydney paying $1300 more than what Labor had promised them.”

Ok, first off, even under O’Brien’s explanation bills have not gone up by $1,300 at best they have gone up $1,025. And sure that might be $1,300 more than Labor promised, but let’s not pretend that is the same thing.

But let’s be kind and not get too worried about that clear fudging of numbers. Let’s get to the real issue – have power bills gone up by even $1,025 let alone the $1,300 extra if we include the ALPs promise of $275 cheaper bills?

Well to work out, let’s use O’Brien’s measure of “the default market offer” (or DMO)

This comes out each year by the Australian Energy Regulator and is “the maximum price an electricity retailer can charge a standing offer customer each year.”

O’Brien referred specifically to Western Sydney, so let’s just use the DMO for NSW distribution regions.  

We know what the DMO was when Labor came to office because the AER issued its price determination for the DMO in May 2022 – the very same month the ALP won the election.

We also know what the DMO is for this year because in March the AER put out its draft proposal (the final numbers will come out in May/June).

So excellent – we have the 2 numbers, so let’s compare the changes for the three distribution regions in NSW – Ausgrid, Endeavour and Essential.

And we’ll look at the price for residential with and without controlled loading (which is just separately metered tariffs used for appliances such as electric hot water storage systems, pool pumps or underfloor heating). The prices also vary from each other because of different usage levels – but they are unchanged from 2002 to 2025, so we are comparing apples with apples.

	Residential without Controlled load	Residential with Controlled load
Ausgrid (May 2022)	$1,512	$2,122
Ausgrid (March 2025)	$1,969	$2,714
Change	$457	$592
Endeavour (May 2022)	$1,836	$2,383
Endeavour (March 2025)	$2,397	$3,050
Change	$561	$667
Essential (May 2022)	$2,092	$2,490
Essential (March 2025)	$2,713	$3,174
Change	$621	$684

As you can see, we are nowhere near $1,000 let alone $1,300 – even if you add in the $275.

But we also can use the ABS’s number from the quarterly inflation figures. Because remember the DMO is just “the maximum price an electricity retailer can charge” that doesn’t mean it is the price you are paying. Many get better deals. Households also get the energy rebate.

So let’s assume in June 2022 your annual electricity bill in Sydney was $1,000, that same amount of electricity on average across Sydney would now cost $1,075. Or $75 more.

Not quite the $1,3000 extra that Ted O’Brien is saying.

We have clearly had high inflation over the past three year. Why the Liberal Party feel the need to make up numbers to suggest things are bad is beyond me.