Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Grey for his question because he knows how to stand up for jobs and small businesses in his electorate. He knows how to do that. We saw that with his keen advocacy for the changes that we have made to small business taxation to ensure that they are paying lower taxes, to ensure that we are cutting the compliance burden for small business, to ensure that we are evening up the playing field with changes to the competition laws and, in particular, putting downward pressure into everything we do when it comes to energy prices. We saw from the member for Grey the advocacy that is needed for regional communities when he stood up for the people of Whyalla and ensured that the steel plant continued to remain open, that a buyer was secured and that the support was there. But he is not the only member of rural and regional communities who knows how to stand up for their community. The member for Wannon stood up for the workers of Portland. He ensured that Alcoa stayed open and that the hundreds of thousands of jobs that depend on that plant remained open.

I suggest that the rural and regional members, particularly those opposite from the Hunter Valley, should take a leaf out of the books of the member for Grey and the member for Wannon. It is those members who are standing in the way of the sensible policies of the Turnbull government to put downward pressure on rising energy prices, especially for small businesses. The no-coal coalition of the Hunter members of those opposite have put up the white flag on all the coalmining and energy jobs that sit in the Hunter Valley. They stand against our plans to ensure that we sweat the coal-fired power assets for longer to ensure that we have greater stability in the energy market and greater stability of baseload power in the energy market. That is part of the Turnbull government's plan to put downward pressure on the rising forces on electricity prices.

We are happy to see Liddell remain open. We want to see Liddell remain open. We want to see those jobs remain in place and that stability and certainty remain in the energy market.

Mr Pasin interjecting—

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