Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

He's lost his lump! Chaos, contradiction, uncertainty and backflips—what a disaster this government has been for energy policy and energy investment.

I started this speech saying those opposite do not have a national energy policy, but that is not strictly true. In this year's budget, the government did institute a national energy policy, and that policy was to inflict higher power prices on Australia's pensioners. Yes, after four years in government, those opposite believe their best contribution to developing a national energy policy is to make the nation's pensioners pay more for their power. Bravo! Slow clap! I'm referring, of course, to the axing of the national energy supplement for pensioners, which has had the immediate effect of forcing pensioners to find an extra $365 a year to pay their ever-rising power bills. Their power bills continue to rise because this government have failed to implement a coherent energy policy that will contain prices and drive them down.

The head of Australia's peak body for welfare organisations says that the welfare sector is:

… deeply concerned about the impacts of increasingly high prices on people who are disadvantaged and living on low incomes.

The Australian Council of Social Service chief, Cassandra Goldie, says:

The price of electricity has increased by 114 per cent over the past decade, leaving many people having to choose between paying high bills or heating their house and buying enough food to feed their family.

This is the reality that people in my electorate live with every day.

I'm sorry to report that an Australian National University study found that Tasmanian electricity bills are, on average, the second highest in the country, at $2,181 a year. This is especially troubling given that Tasmanian incomes are amongst the lowest in the nation and our rates of socioeconomic disadvantage are higher across the board. Tasmanians are, on average, paying 66 per cent more for power than we did 10 years ago and spending more of our household budget on electricity than anywhere else in the country—and that's despite being home to an abundance of cheap, renewable hydropower. It's fair to say that there's a bit of disquiet in my state about the state of the national electricity grid and whether it's working in the best interests of the people of my state. That's a debate we're having in Tasmania. I was going to talk about fuel prices in Tasmania—perhaps another time. I think one of my constituents paid 109c on the Princes Highway at Noble Park and a day later in Tasmania paid 133.9c. It's a massive difference. For a 60-litre tank, that's a $14 difference. So you can see that the fuel increases in Tasmania are massive.

So, yes, we need medium- and long-term solutions. We also need action that will have an immediate impact when it comes to ensuring domestic supply to contain prices of gas and the other fuels that we have. The difficulty in securing gas supply and prices is impacting not just electricity prices and security today but also the viability of new gas-fired power stations. As the Prime Minister has pointed out, the Commonwealth wields significant powers to ensure domestic energy security, but so far all he has done is ask others to solve his crisis. This isn't good enough, and it's not strong leadership. Labor calls on the Prime Minister to actively deliver domestic gas security, not to continue to grandstand and blame others while he continues to preside over a chronic domestic shortage. Labor back this bill, but we certainly do not back this government's failure to enact a national energy policy.

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