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

of putting more and more variable renewables into the energy mix and providing no backup and no storage. What about gas as a firming power? That would be good: you could use gas. But, oh no, another great achievement of the Labor Party was that they allowed gas to be exported from the east coast of Australia and, despite many warnings, failed to do anything to protect the domestic market.

To be fair, the member for Port Adelaide has made a confession, and better late than never; I think we all agree with that. But it was rather late in coming. When he was on Insiders on 30 April, he was asked by Barrie Cassidy: 'You got plenty of advice when you were in government that the surge in exports would lead to these sorts of problems. You didn't take this action.' 'No,' said the member for Port Adelaide, 'We didn't get that advice.' That was very, very bad because the Labor Party government's own energy white paper said that these transitional pressures will manifest in tighter supply and higher prices.

As if that weren't enough, the AEMO's Gas Statement of Opportunities in the same year said, 'This will result in supply shortfalls'. That's exactly what happened. Finally, it all caught up with him and he had to confess to David Speers—not a man of the cloth, not able to give absolution any more than his constituents or Australians will give the Labor Party absolution for their chronic failure in energy policy. Again and again, ideology and idiocy. Why are gas prices so high? Because Labor allowed gas to be exported and didn't protect the domestic market. That's a fact.

Who's addressing it? We're addressing it. That's the matter we should be discussing today. That's really urgent. Energy prices are an urgent matter right now. That's what Australian families are talking about. That's what's putting Australian businesses and jobs at risk. And we've been told that AEMO estimates that in 2022 there will be a 1,000 megawatt shortfall in dispatchable energy in the national electricity market. That is a very big gap. That puts at risk jobs, businesses, families. It creates a huge vulnerability for blackouts. Now this is the big difference: we are for affordable and reliable energy; Labor is for blackouts. Labor is for energy shortages. Labor is for the types of outcomes the member for Port Adelaide has got used to in South Australia. He clearly loves being in the dark!

A government member: He called it a hiccup.

That's right; he called it a hiccup. When those hospitals had energy cut-offs, he called it a hiccup. That's all it was. One of the obvious opportunities to cover that 1,000 megawatt gap is to get more life out of existing coal-fired power stations, and Liddell obviously has an opportunity to run for longer—to run past 2022. Now, you would think that this is an obvious opportunity. It has been flagged by Alan Finkel himself as a good avenue to go down, and it has been flagged by AEMO as a prudent approach. It's perfectly obvious that the cheapest coal-fired power is that from existing power stations, so you would think you would get some support for that, particularly from the member for Hunter. But this is what he said: 'not one energy company has shown any interest in the Prime Minister's thought bubble'. Sadly, that turns out to be very quickly out of date. He has denied any opportunity to provide continued employment for the workers at Liddell or, indeed, for the workers at Tomago.

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

No, the honourable member can't dig his way out of that. You're deep in the pit, Member for Hunter, right at the bottom. There's risk of a cave-in if you go any further, I can tell you. You are in very deep waters here. The member for Hunter is betraying every member of his electorate who depends on energy, who depends on manufacturing.

The Labor Party have walked away from energy security. They have walked away from any attempt to defend the jobs, the occupations of those many workers they claim to represent. And we have the Leader of the Opposition's union, the Australian Workers Union, with lots of miners. The Leader of the Opposition used to represent a lot of miners.

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