Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You are happy for energy pricing to go up for pensioners, right? You are happy for energy prices to go up. But state Labor borrowed billions of dollars. If there are any Queenslanders here, do you know what they are doing now? Do you know what the Palaszczuk government are doing? They owe $80 billion in Queensland, and they are getting billions of that money and they are putting it on to Energy Queensland, which is a merger of Energex and Ergon; they are putting it onto CS Energy, which is a generator in Queensland, and Stanwell, which is a generator—all state-government-owned assets—and they are saying, 'We don't owe any money. The Queensland government doesn't owe any money. That belongs to the energy generators and distributors.' And this mob here wonder why energy prices are going up! We have just had state Labor, the Palaszczuk government, offload some $10 billion worth of their debt onto their own energy providers. They moved billions of dollars. They also gold-plated poles and wires.

So the Australian public know that these two members over here—I cannot blame the guy from Tassie up the back; he has only just come in—along with everyone else, voted for the carbon tax. And now they come in here and try to tell us that we are not doing enough to help pensioners with energy pricing.

I would like to quote the minister here. He said this morning:

The government will continue to prioritise energy security and affordability. The 2017-18 budget includes a $265 million energy package that will ensure Australia maintains a secure, reliable and competitive energy system into the future. Amongst a range of measures, it provides funding to expand gas supply, makes finance available to build a solar thermal plant and provides additional funding for the Australian Energy Regulator to scrutinise energy providers to ensure they are serving consumers' needs.

He also spoke about Prime Minister Turnbull's plan for Snowy 2.0, which is a great plan that he is acting on, that he is implementing, that he has made a decision on, to help with our energy supply, which is very, very important. The minister also spoke about gas-fired generation, saying how it is an important part of our electricity system and saying that the higher the price of gas the higher the price of electricity, and calling on the state governments, particularly Victoria's, to lift the moratoriums to allow for more supply of gas, so that pensioners are not getting hit with higher gas prices.

The Australian public are awake up to Labor; they are right onto them. They know that Labor cannot balance the budget and that, every time they cannot, that pushes up the cost for people. They know that Labor cannot be trusted but the coalition can.

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