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

I thank the member for his question. I do stand by those comments, because this is what I said: we need to sweat our existing coal-fired power generation assets for longer because it's those assets that are putting energy into the system at between $20 and $40 per megawatt hour. If you go and build a new coal-fired Healy plant, that is going to produce energy at about $80 per megawatt hour. That's why we need to sweat the existing coal-fired power assets for longer.

It's not the policy of those who sit opposite, though. It's not the policy of the coalophobes who sit opposite, who want to shut down coal-fired power stations in their own electorates. I reminded the House of this yesterday. We have the member for Grey up there, who kept a steel plant open. We have the member for Wannon down here, who kept an aluminium smelter open. And we have Labor members across the dial over there who want to shut down businesses with their higher taxes and they want to shut down coal-fired power stations, which will deliver baseload energy for Australian households and consumers.

So I welcome the question from the member for McMahon, who used to believe in lowering company taxes and who used to believe in policies that support growth. Now he's just got on board with the caravan of the most left-wing Labor leader we have seen in generations. And it's not just me who has said it. We heard that from Michael Costa as well, who accused him of exactly the same thing. And we have Richo, who has described the Labor policies on energy as 'an absolute farce'. They said, 'Oh Richo'—

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