Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I hate to remind the member for Melbourne that, when they were in coalition with the Labor government when they were last in power, power prices increased by 100 per cent. That was the Greens legacy. The confected moral outrage from the Greens when it comes to climate policy is amazing. When members on this side of the House were dealing with their constituents who were dealing with Cyclone Debbie and when members on this side of the House were dealing with their constituents who were dealing with the fires in Sydney, who was out there on their soap box blaming climate change? The member for Melbourne, and that was disgraceful. That was absolutely disgraceful. It might be an inconvenient truth for the member for Melbourne that emissions in Australia are at their lowest level in 27 years, in terms of GDP and per capita—the lowest level in 27 years. Even electricity sector emissions have been falling in the last two quarters.

The member for Melbourne refers to storage. It was this government, the Turnbull government, that for the first time put the issue of storage at the top of the policy agenda. What did the Labor Party in South Australia do about storage? Nothing. Now they have to spend $110 million on diesel generators that don't work when it's hot. They have to take more coal than before from Victoria across to the Heywood interconnector and they have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money building a new gas-fired power station. What did the Labor Party ever do about storage? What did the Greens ever say about storage? That is why, on this side of the House, we've invested more than $200 million in a vast array of projects on storage and we're investing in Snowy 2.0. At the end of the day, if the lights don't stay on, there's no point in reducing emissions. Our focus is on reliability and affordability while staying true to our international commitments. That is why we've commissioned expert advice from AEMO and from the ACCC, and it's on that advice that we have been acting to lower people's power prices.

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