About $40 million of power and water bill rebates is waiting to be claimed by Queenslanders, the state government has said.

Acting Premier Jackie Trad said about 500,000 people every year took advantage of rebates, but there were some who hadn’t taken up the offer of support.

“So new people coming into the system, whether they’re people with a newly diagnosed disability, whether they’re people who have found it difficult to get work and are now on Centrelink, whether they are asylum seekers,” Ms Trad told reporters on Sunday.

“We acknowledge that we need to do better to get the word out to them that they may be eligible for government concessions.”

To help with this, the government has set up a website, where people can check if they’re eligible for rebates.

It comes as Ms Trad announced the government would spend a total of $5.5 billion on rebates in the June 12 state budget, an increase of $200 million on the previous year.

The Liberal National Party opposition took aim at the increase, with Deputy Opposition Leader Tim Mander saying it wasn’t a long-term solution to cost-of-living pressures.

“If people are missing out on concessions, that means the government hasn’t been promoting it well enough,” he told reporters in Brisbane.

“But I think people are sick of short-term sugar fixes; they want structural change that will bring reduced electricity costs for everybody, not just a few.”

Despite that, Mr Mander said an LNP government would continue the rebate scheme unchanged.

-AAP