Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question, and I thank him for asking a question which proves the point that the government and I have been making over the last few weeks, which is that we are seeing rising electricity prices—yes, we are. We are seeing rising electricity prices in a context where there is no price for carbon. The member knows that. The fact that we were going to see rising electricity prices was honestly spoken about by the member for Groom the day before the last election. We are seeing rising electricity prices because we have had underinvestment in supply capacity, and the best advice from industry is that continuing uncertainty about pricing carbon means that industry is anxious about how it is going to make its investments in the future.

So, having just had a decade or more of underinvestment, would it not be completely negligent and not in the national interest to allow another decade of underinvestment to roll out because we did not give the industry the certainty it needed to know where it could invest, what sort of investments it should have been making, the technology it should have been using—all of the things that go with investment decisions worth billions and billions and billions of dollars? In giving the industry certainty we would be avoiding that underinvestment which puts real pressure on prices; avoiding that underinvestment which puts real pressure on supply. When the member for Groom said when we were last talking about pricing carbon that he was satisfied with the outcome of those discussions and that as a result of those discussions we had avoided electricity outages in Victoria, he was making an important point.

The member who asked me the question is basically saying that he is content to fearmonger in this debate; he is content to be in denial of the needs of the future; he is content to see another decade of underinvestment in electricity. That means he is content to see upwards pressure on prices and insufficient supply, risking outages for Australian households and businesses because electricity is simply not there for them when they need it to run their business or when they need it to cook their dinner at home. I will leave the opposition to go out and argue to Australians why it wants energy uncertainty for them for the future. We will work our way through the issue of pricing carbon. If the opposition ever divert from their current course of three-word slogans, of wrecking, of negativity and bitterness, they can feel free to give us a call because we are prepared to have the opposition work through this important national reform with us.

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