Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

It is contributions like that that exemplify how long a sitting fortnight can be. That was just extraordinary! This MPI is a particular matter of public importance because it is two years ago today, as we said in question time, that the member for Wentworth defenestrated the member for Warringah on the promise of so much—so much of substance. But I think the thing that the now Prime Minister promised the Australian people wasn't so much specific policy, it was that there would be a change in the nature of politics. Constituents of our side of parliament as well, I'm sure, as that side of parliament felt a sense of relief that there had been a change. They felt that the member for Wentworth was promising to turn a new page in Australian politics, to bring politics back to the centre and to talk intelligently to the Australian people instead of talking to them in three-word slogans. When he made a promise, they thought he would keep the promise, because they remembered that in 2009 this was a fellow willing to lose his job as the Leader of the Opposition for a principle: standing up for effective action on climate change.

If there is one promise that the Australian people most associate with the member for Wentworth, now the Prime Minister, it is the promise he made in 2009 that, 'I will not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am'. Of all the disappointments from this Prime Minister, of all the broken promises, it is that one that gets raised with this side of the House most often by the Australian people. It exemplifies, most starkly, the change in this man and the shrinking in the public profile of what the Australian people thought they had in the member for Wentworth. There are any number of policies around climate change that I could raise to exemplify that point, but it is particularly in energy policy that this Prime Minister has entirely subordinated his power as Prime Minister to the member for Warringah. It is so clear that the member for Warringah in different areas of policy, but most notably in this one, exercises an effective veto over this government. Two years ago they changed the Prime Minister, but the same bloke still controls the power.

There are any number of aspects to this failure on energy policy. This country has been plunged into a deep energy crisis by this government. Prices are skyrocketing. Reliability is plummeting. The Energy Market Operator has warned that two-thirds of the country over coming summers will be at risk of blackouts. Over this government's time in power, seven coal-fired power stations have been closed. That is the amount of power equivalent to the demand from six million households. Yesterday, the Prime Minister boasted, 'Well, during the last decade, 2,900 megawatts of dispatchable gas-fired generation has been added.' He didn't add that every single one of those megawatts was added to the system under the last Labor government. When they saw that the member for Warringah was going to wreck the country's climate and energy policies, investment certainty fell off a cliff in this country. For that reason, we have not seen a single megawatt of dispatchable power added to the National Electricity Market in more than four years of this government. Four-thousand megawatts have gone out of the system under them. Not a single megawatt of dispatchable power has been added to the system by this government.

And this government's got a blueprint. They've got a pathway out of this: a report commissioned by this government from their own chief scientist, supported by the states and supported by industry. We've said that we'll play a constructive role in negotiating around this report. But the member for Warringah still holds the whip hand. Two years on, you still know who controls this government. It's not the bloke who sits in this chair; it's the one who comes in late to question time every day and sits up there: the member for Warringah. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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