Budget squandered 'best chance' to help living costs and climate at once

Biden Administration energy advisor Saul Griffith said the $300 power bill subsidy without funding to turn homes all-electric was too much of a temporary measure and it served present-day fossil fuel interests.

Funding to help households with the costs of transforming their homes to all-electric would have made a lasting change to the hip pocket and carbon emissions, he said.

"If we helped households electrify their cars, water heaters, kitchen stoves and space heaters and also helped them put solar on their roofs and in their communities, we would get permanent savings of thousands of dollars per year per household," Dr Griffith said.

"Instead we are giving one-time 'relief' which in effect is money that goes to perpetuating the current fossil fuel based system, not providing permanent cost-of-living relief.

"This budget was the perfect opportunity for the government to show that vision and combine it with policies that produce many of those goodies in Australia. "Instead we have a fairly incoherent policy that doesn't address the structural problems underneath our current energy system.

"I give this Budget a C. Maybe a C-minus."

Simply subsidising existing power bills was a temporary salve that did nothing to transform how electricity was generated or how much power households use.

Dr Griffith, founder of Rewire Australia and author of Rewiring America, has led push to "electrify everything" - transform all household power to electric power which can then be generated from renewable energy sources.

He has estimated this could save households up to $5000 a year if they install solar panels and batteries, and change to electric vehicles, heating and kitchen appliances.

Dr Griffith has been a key adviser to the administration of President Joe Biden in the United States including developing the decarbonisation initiatives in that country's Inflation Reduction Act.

He supported independent Senator David Pocock's criticism of the Budget that the future investments "missed the mark" by leaving out "rewiring.

"Household electrification was a core pillar of the US Inflation Reduction Act but is totally absent from the Future Made in Australia policy," Senator Pock said on Tuesday.

"Saving households up to $5000 year on year through electrification would have been a far better investment than a one-off payment that also goes to people who don't need the help."

Dr Griffith said the Government's headline policy of billions to support "green" manufacturing was positive but it lacked safeguards against "crony capitalism", as federal agencies did not have a good record of supporting start-ups and young innovators and had favoured established market players.

"Combined with last week's gas announcement it looks like this government has been successfully hoodwinked by an incredibly cynical gas industry," he said.

"The tragedy is that Australia could lead the world but we continue to pursue last place."