Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I agree! They've gone completely cuckoo. It made me wonder for a moment which government they're talking about. They didn't clarify that. Maybe they're not talking about the federal government. Maybe they're talking about Victorian Labor government, which, of course, is responsible for the closure of Hazelwood and continues to have a moratorium on gas exploration. But I might be wrong.

An honourable member: You are wrong!

I am wrong, they say. Maybe I'm talking about—I don't know—the South Australian government, another Labor government with a 50 per cent renewable target. The state that has lived in blackouts because of traditional, typical, quintessential Labor policy.

Mr Wallace interjecting—

There is indeed a connection, Member for Fisher, and I'll get to that shortly. The South Australian government is over-reliant on wind, and clearly never had the thought that, quite possibly, at some point, the wind may not blow. And then what happens? There are blackouts, and the best they can do is plug the extension cord into Victoria and suck as much back as they can.

But, again, I could be wrong. They might be talking about a different government. How about the Queensland state Labor government? It is another Labor government that has a 50 per cent renewable target. This is the Palaszczuk Labor government, which continues to price gouge consumers so that it can rip out dividends from the power generating companies, which are government owned, to cover its own fiscal mess. In 2014-15, the Palaszczuk government hit government owned enterprises with a bill of $10 billion. That's how bad the Queensland Labor government is. Do members know how much it hit up Powerlink in that same year? Powerlink, of course, is a power transmitter. In that year, Powerlink earned a net profit of $220 million. Guess how much the Queensland state Labor government took as a dividend? Every single cent of it. And guess what it did then? By ministerial instruction, it directed Powerlink to pay an extra $1.2 billion. This is the problem with our power sector. This is a typical Labor government that, exactly like Victoria and exactly like South Australia, will rip out any money it can to cover its own fiscal mess. That's what's happened in Queensland.

Earlier, my friend and colleague the member for Fisher asked, 'Do these governments have something in common?' Yes, they do. They're all cuckoo Labor. That's what it is: they're all Labor governments. If you think the only problems lies with the states, look at the Gillard government. Look at the last federal Labor government, which gave us the pink batts.

Honourable members interjecting—

'It was four years ago, so let's forget about it,' they say. They are full of excuses. They gave us the pink batts and they gave us the carbon tax. The member for Hunter today wanted to recreate it, but instead of calling it the carbon tax it was—what did he call it?—the carbon architecture, and he blamed the coalition. The abolition of the so-called carbon architecture has apparently driven up power prices. They are completely deluded. In the face of such cuckoo Labor governments, all I can say is: thank God we have at the federal level a coalition government in control, because if we didn't they would bring back the carbon tax. They would make sure they only looked at renewables. They've made it very clear they want to close all the coal-fired power stations—typical Labor. Thank God we have the coalition in government.

See this speech in context