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

I thank the honourable member for her question. Mr Speaker, let me start with the alternative approaches, because we know what the approach has been from the Labor Party. We do. We know what their approach is: no engineering and no plan; massive investment in renewables, with no regard to the fact that the sun doesn't shine all the time and the wind doesn't blow all the time; and force-feeding a massive amount of renewables into the South Australian market without any backup or storage whatsoever, driving out reliable power to introduce variable power—an extraordinary example of incompetence that resulted in South Australia having, as we know, to the great cost of South Australians, the most expensive and the least reliable electricity in Australia. This was a situation entirely created by a state Labor government that went into it with eyes open, proudly claiming this was a bold experiment. Well, it was an experiment, and what it demonstrated was that Australians need to know that, when they flick the switch, the lights will come on, and they need to be able to afford to pay the bill. That's what they managed to establish.

Now, what we've done since we came into office is systematically deliver policy that is based on fact and on engineering, and we have delivered lower prices for thousands of Australian customers of electricity.

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