It was only in June that I again raised in this House the New South Wales Liberal Government's obsession with privatising our electricity assets and the dire impact it has had on families across the State, including in the Swansea electorate. Four months have now passed, and the recent sale of Vales Point Power Station highlights how the privatisation of electricity was a bad deal for the people of the electorate of Swansea and broader New South Wales.

Back in 2015 the New South Wales Government sold the Vales Point Power Station to Delta for just $1 million. What a sweet deal that was if you could get it. As part of that deal, the Government agreed that, along with New South Wales taxpayers, it would retain remediation costs of the site. Whilst that may have been all fun and games to the Government at the time, I can assure members that it was the start of an ongoing nightmare for those people of the Swansea electorate. Last month, Trevor St Baker sold Delta and the accompanying power station to Czech company Sev.en Global Investments for over $200 million, leaving Delta's former owner with a sweet multimillion-dollar profit. There is no doubt that the new owners will continue to rake in profits from this asset, while residents receive nothing but the remediation bill.

The Government has a track record of privatising public assets. We have seen it with our toll roads, and we have seen it with our electricity. In June 2014 the Liberal Government announced its plan to privatise poles and wires across the State. It also assured us that all of the money generated from the sale of poles and wires would be put towards building new State-owned assets and that energy prices would not increase. In fact, in debate on the Electricity Retained Interest Corporations Bill 2015, the current Treasurer stated that allowing private investment in the network assets would mean "a more efficient network and therefore lower prices for consumers". In 2020 he even pledged to the Parliament that electricity bills would be lower under the Liberals. The people of the Swansea electorate and I have always known that privatising electricity was a disaster waiting to happen. Locals have constantly shared with me their views that privatising electricity would lead to substantial price increases and limited supply. And the people of the Swansea electorate and I were 100 per cent right.

Since the decision to privatise electricity was made, residents have copped pricey bills and have struggled to obtain supply. New data released by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis confirms that. Privatised entities, including Ausgrid that supplies energy to the Hunter and the Central Coast, raked in a whopping 10.3 per cent of the average energy bill in profits, compared with the government-run Essential Energy, with only 0.2 per cent profit. Furthermore, between 2014 and 2021, energy networks have collected 67 per cent in profits—a significantly higher percentage than usual. That means that every single household in New South Wales is paying over $100 a year more than they should be for their electricity. Given the cost of living, that is more than what many simply have to spare.

It is evident from the Government's energy privatisation record that Government members could not care less about how their decision to sell off electricity has burdened the people of this State. Their actions have been nothing but a slap in the face for our residents, which we have seen through the recent sale of Vales Point Power Station. It is time for the New South Wales Liberal Government to acknowledge that electricity privatisation was a poor decision for the people of this State and certainly for the people of the electorate of Swansea. We were promised lower prices and reliable supply, and we got neither. Instead, people are scared to turn on the lights, heaters and air conditioners. We have been forced back a generation. The Liberal leadership lauds itself as the future, yet electricity privatisation has done nothing but make the people of New South Wales, particularly my community, anxious about keeping their lights on and providing for their families.