Including when it comes to other people's comments about those policies.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims told the Energy Users' Association of Australia that the privatisation of Queensland's electricity generation assets would be its focus if the LNP wins the next election and can go ahead with its assets sales plan.

Mr Sims said he hoped the Queensland government would "use this opportunity to establish a competitive structure".

"Breaking up Stanwell and CS Energy prior to privatisation into, say, three competitors, as existed a short time ago, would clearly improve competitive outcomes and make ACCC approval a smoother path, as it would allow a competitive generation market," he said.

"...On the flip side, there is the potential that selling an asset may worsen or entrench a market structure that is not sufficiently competitive, and so damage competition, consumers and the long-term health of the economy."

Treasurer Tim Nicholls, while announcing an on-line calculator that would help voters work out how much they would save on their electricity bill - if the government wins the 2015 poll and can move on its plan to remove the solar bonus scheme tariff from bills and fund it instead from its asset sales cash pool - said he believed Mr Sims agreed with the government.

"He was saying that he thought private sector involvement in electricity generation will lead to cheaper prices," Mr Nicholls said, as a Crosby Textor consultant involved in helping to shape and sell the Strong Choices plan looked on from the back of the room.

"He was concerned to highlight that competition was necessary and I agree with Mr Sims. Competition is necessary.

"He wants to see a certain outcome in terms of that. We will have to wait and see what it is that is the best way to proceed as such."

But Mr Nicholls did not commit the government to making sure a mechanism was in place to ensure competition benefited consumers.

"It depends what you call the competition market," he said.

"In Australia, on the eastern seaboard, we have a competitive market and that is what the Australian competition tribunal found.

"Just because a generator is located in one state the market isn't that state. The market is the entire eastern seaboard because electricity from generators is traded up the entire eastern seaboard.

"I think the underlying premise of Mr Sims's argument was that private sector involvement in electricity generation will lead to more competition and better prices for consumers. And we have seen that, if you like, with the Ernst and Young report, particularly around networks, which found that in Victoria and South Australia, where their networks have been run by the private sector for some time now, their price increases were substantially lower than in Queensland and NSW and Queensland was in fact the highest with network price increases of 140 per cent in 10 years.

"The price of electricity is actually set by the Australian Energy Regulator. It is not set by governments and we have been making that point for some considerable length of time now.

"We are able to take out some of the costs of supplying that power through tighter controls on expenditure and the networks."

A review into energy sector privatisation by University of Queensland economist John Quiggin found the move had been a "failure" which produced "no benefits" for consumers.

The report, which was commissioned by the Victorian branch of the Electrical Trades Union, found electricity prices were highest in privatised states, and had "risen sharply" since the introduction of the National Electricity Market.

The government will not move forward with any plan unless it is given what it says is a mandate – a win – at the next election.