Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. This is the reality that we face: thanks to a failure of policy by state Labor governments over many years, we have a situation where, without any regard to the consequences for the stability of the grid or the affordability of electricity, Labor governments—and would-be governments in the case of the honourable member's opposition—have pursued utterly unrealistic, unaffordable renewables targets without giving any thought to what their consequences will be for the grid, for households, for affordability.

We are, here in Australia, blessed with some of the largest gas reserves in our region. We will shortly be the largest exporter of LNG in the world. And yet in Victoria a state Labor government has closed down one large power station—20 per cent of the state's electricity—which has had the result of increasing electricity costs in Victoria. And then, when we all know that, in every assumption, gas is the transition fuel—'You need gas to come in and take over from coal; gas will be the transition'—they have locked up all the gas. The Victorian government will not even allow the exploration of onshore conventional gas in Victoria.

Mr Bowen interjecting—

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