Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As Australia's largest domestic manufacturer, with an energy bill of around $150 million a year, BlueScope certainly recognises the importance of energy certainty and energy cost and reliability. In fact, the malign legacy of the Australian Labor Party is a threat that must be addressed. When Labor was last in office, we saw energy costs double, increasing by 101 per cent, so the fact is that there is a real threat to the future of jobs at manufacturers like BlueScope. That threat is the Australian Labor Party and the Leader of the Opposition, as he goes about his mission impossible of trying to appease both the Greens and the CFMEU at the same time when it comes to energy policy.

You can almost imagine a top-secret meeting between Labor and the Greens. They say, 'Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make Australia's coal workers think that you're standing up for them on the red side, just like the Cleanevent workers did, and also to make those in the inner city suburbs think that you're standing up for the environment on the green side.' The simple fact is that this Leader of the Opposition is no Tom Cruise. This Leader of the Opposition is the kind of guy who's going to let down the workers at BlueScope, and he's going to let down those who are concerned about the environment—because the simple, inescapable fact is that Labor's federal energy policy will be a continuation of an approach that has seen higher energy prices, with a doubling of energy costs when Labor was last in power, and will see blackouts not only in South Australia but across the country, as a direct result.

See this speech in context