Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

It is 50 years old! Do you know anything about the electricity sector? The problem is, with 4,000 megawatts closing under this government, there are no replacements because there is no policy framework.

Mr Hawke interjecting—

Everyone agrees what the policy framework should be—everyone except this government. The member for Mitchell says, 'Rubbish.' Well, the Business Council of Australia, BHP Billiton, AGL Energy, EnergyAustralia, the National Farmers' Federation, Origin Energy, the Australian Energy Market Commission, CSIRO, Energy Networks Australia, the Chief Scientist, the Climate Change Authority, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Prime Minister's former energy adviser Danny Price, Labor and Liberal state governments alike—we hear from the New South Wales government—and many other energy stakeholders agree. We look to find who is opposed to an emissions intensity scheme. We know this government is. We suspect, probably, One Nation is. Everyone else knows the solution to this supply crisis. It is just that this government, particularly this minister, is not able to deliver his party room.

Honourable members interjecting—

Danny Price nailed it in December when this minister was overridden because of a revolution from Cory Bernardi. That worked really well. Placating Cory worked really, really well. There was a bit of a revolution from the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, and this minister got overridden in just 36 hours. Danny Price nailed it when he said, because of that terrible decision in December, 'This party of government will be the party of reduced electricity security and increased prices.' That is what Danny Price said.

Prices have already been an issue in this country for more than 10 years because of the gold plating of the networks that goes back to the Howard era. Gold plating of the networks, which has seen, particularly, the coal-fired states of the eastern seaboard see the largest price rises, as The Australian newspaper helpfully pointed out a couple of months ago. The largest price rises are in Queensland, then Victoria and then New South Wales. But now we see wholesale prices spiking under this government. They have doubled under this government. Wholesale prices have doubled under this government because of their inability to deal with the supply crisis.

Over the last summer period, the NEM average wholesale price was $134 per megawatt-hour—$134. That is more than twice the wholesale price in the two summers during the carbon price mechanism. In Queensland, it is almost triple the price it was during the carbon price mechanism. There was a wholesale price over the summer just finished of $200 per megawatt-hour. That is one-third higher than the South Australian wholesale price over the course of this summer.

Dick Warburton, who chaired a review for the former Prime Minister, said, 'There is a good way to put downward pressure on wholesale power prices—expand renewable energy.' But this government has done nothing but attack renewables, which is hurting prices, the ABS told us on Friday, and killing one in three jobs in the renewable energy industry. Those jobs are gone under this government. While around the world there is 45 per cent growth in renewable energy jobs, this government has lost thousands upon thousands.

To be fair, this government does have one plan, or at least the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Canavan, has a plan: build new coal-fired power stations.

Honourable members interjecting—

The Prime Minister announced it at the Press Club and waited for the clamour. There was deafening silence until one person said they would be willing to take the taxpayers' dime to build coal-fired power stations, and that was Clive Palmer. Clive Palmer said he would partner with the Minister for the Environment and Energy and build coal-fired power stations. This is the bloke whose last brilliant idea was to build Titanic II. That is the great supporter of this government's energy plan. All this government can do is rest on tired ideology framed by tired old scare campaigns.

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