Labor Manifesto Includes: Creating at least one publicly-owned energy company in every region

I question Labors manifesto of creating at least one publicly owned energy supplier in every region.
What are they trying to achieve? Cheaper prices? Do they believe they will be able to undercut the big6 supplier? If yes, that would mean driving most energy suppliers especially smaller ones out of business. This would certainly be detrimental to the competition.
And if they are more expensive than that would be a failure and only leave the tax-payer with paying the deficit.
Better service? Unlikely a government run company should offer a high standard of customer service.