Family First's Jane Foreman says new polling showing 67 per cent of Gippsland residents refuse to pay even one extra dollar on their power bills to speed up the renewable transition isn't a regional quirk — it's proof of what Family First has said all year: families right across Victoria want affordable, reliable power, not the Carroll Labor Government's costly ideological targets.
Mrs Foreman says the Herald Sun's report on new polling commissioned by Affordable Energy Australia, surveying 511 residents across the Gippsland, Bass and Pakenham districts, reflects exactly what Family First hears from families everywhere in Victoria. The poll found 93 per cent of respondents are concerned about the cost of their electricity and gas bills, with 67 per cent unwilling to pay a single extra dollar. It echoes an earlier JWS Research poll of 1,000 Victorians in July, which found comparable levels of concern about bills and strong statewide support for Family First's own energy policies.
More than half of those surveyed ranked keeping household and small business electricity bills affordable as the single most important priority for Victoria's energy system, ahead of reliability in second place and cutting emissions a distant third — a hierarchy Mrs Foreman says holds true in every corner of the state, not just Gippsland. It comes as Star of the South, the offshore wind project meant to help replace the capacity lost when Yallourn and Loy Yang A close in 2028 and 2035, has had its completion pushed back to as late as 2037 — leaving Victorian families to carry the cost and the risk of the transition years before any replacement power arrives.
"Gippsland isn't an outlier, it's the canary in the coal mine for every Victorian family," said Mrs Foreman. "Wherever Family First goes in this state, the message is the same: people want affordable, reliable power, not Spring Street's ideological targets. Losing Yallourn in 2028 and Loy Yang A in 2035, while the offshore wind meant to replace them is pushed back to 2037, isn't just a Gippsland problem — it's a bill every Victorian family will end up paying."
"I have been saying all year that Victorian families everywhere are paying the price for Labor's energy ideology, and this poll proves it again," said Mrs Foreman. "Ninety-three per cent of these families are worried about their bills, and I hear the same thing from families in Melbourne's suburbs and right across regional Victoria. Family First's plan is simple: keep our coal stations running, unlock Victoria's gas, and let nuclear power be part of the mix — because every Victorian family deserves cheap, reliable energy now, not a promise for the 2030s."
Family First is calling on Premier Ben Carroll to abandon Victoria's legislated offshore wind targets until cheaper, reliable replacement power can be guaranteed, and to give Victorian families and communities — in Gippsland and everywhere else — a genuine say on the pace and cost of the transition rather than proceeding on the say of Spring Street bureaucrats and lobbyists.
Mrs Foreman says this poll is further proof Victoria needs Family First's genuinely independent voice holding this government to account in the Legislative Council after November — because families and businesses everywhere in this state, not just in Gippsland, cannot afford more of Labor's energy ideology.
—
