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

Unlike the Labor Party, which has no policy to put downward pressure on rising energy prices, the Turnbull government does have a plan. We have plans, and those plans have the following elements.

First of all, we are securing Australian gas where we need it—at home to drive gas prices down—and have put the mechanisms in place to ensure that we can deliver on that. Secondly, we are calling the retail energy companies to account and ensuring that Australian consumers and Australian businesses get the best possible deal. We are doing that not just with the direct initiatives of the Prime Minister and the energy minister with those companies, which are already seeing Australians going and getting a better deal, as we know, right now. But we are doing it through the work of the ACCC, who are doing the inquiries on both gas and retail electricity. Thirdly, we have abolished the limited merits review process, which was putting upward pressure on energy prices. We are ensuring our regulations aren't driving up energy prices but, to the contrary, are putting downward pressures on those prices.

We are investing over $3 billion in lower-emissions technologies through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and, importantly, we are working to deliver a new investment framework which can guarantee the certainty necessary for both domestic and international investors to invest in future energy supply in this country. That means everything from keeping Liddell open, which those opposite want to close, to seeing the increased investment going to renewable technologies, into storage technologies and seeing that delivered on the ground.

This is a comprehensive plan which is designed to put downward pressure on rising energy prices. What those opposite propose is a 45 per cent emissions reduction target, which is a great, big, fat electricity tax, which is being sponsored by the Leader of the Opposition—the shiftiest Leader of the Opposition that the Australian people have known about for a long period of time. If he gets to slither into The Lodge, they will feel the effects! If he went to Hogwarts, he would have been in the house of Slytherin. The only difference is some in Slytherin came good in the end, unlike this Leader of the Opposition.

See this speech in context