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

The important focus for all of us here should be ensuring that Australians' electricity prices are lower and that electricity is reliable, not just today and tomorrow—and I have described the steps we're taking to ensure that—but in the years and, indeed, decades ahead. That requires careful planning. The Leader of the Opposition groans when you talk about 'careful planning', and well he might: he is a complete stranger to it. He has never thought more than a moment ahead in time. He is all tactics and no strategy. What he said about Liddell is typical. When the Liddell closure and the implications of that were made plain, he said, 'That's an issue down the track.' Well, that's what happened with Hazelwood. It closed on five months' notice, or a bit less, and we saw a massive gap in dispatchable power. Had there been proper planning in place for that, which should have started many, many years before, that gap in dispatchability could have been taken up by something else or perhaps it could have continued for a few more years. But the reality is that the market fell off a cliff, and it's households and businesses that are paying the price. The same lack of planning was seen over gas, when the member for Port Adelaide first said, 'We weren't warned,' then had to admit that he had been warned—he had to fess up. The reality is that of course they were warned and they ignored it. Why? Because it was another issue down the track. That's the problem with Labor: no plan, no confidence, all ideology, all idiocy.

See this speech in context