Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I come here for the betterment of Australia. We have a standard of living that is the envy of the world. Our life expectancy is high. Our safety, our security and our prosperity are the results of the endeavours of Australians. We have an abundance of natural resources—our sunshine, our gas, our coal, our uranium, our soils and our water. Water, which the member for Grayndler was talking about, is pumped by electricity to produce product. That product is cooled by electricity and that produce is then marketed. Our cities and offices are powered by electricity. The people who work in those offices catch trams or trains when heading home after work. Those trams and trains are powered by electricity. Those people go home to their houses which are cooled or heated by electricity.

You may ask, 'What is the threat? I can say it with one word: Labor—a party made up of nice personalities with no management ability at all. You may ask, 'What is the threat?' I say it again: it is Labor, who are so concerned about losing their seats to the eroding ideology of the Greens that they no longer care about the pensioners who are unable to turn their power on and keep themselves warm. You may ask again, 'What is the threat?' It is Labor with a 50 per cent renewable energy target that makes us feel so warm and fuzzy but sends us broke.

You may ask what our aim is. Our aim is to get power prices down. The coalition is the party for lower power prices. You may ask what our aim is. It is a new coal-fired power station. Australia exports coal and iron ore—little black rocks and little red rocks; those two things that are driving our domestic product—and yet we're so scared to want to build a coal-fired power station in Australia. It's good enough to export, but we should be game to export. You may ask what our aim is. It is to refurbish coal-fired power stations so that they're cleaner and more responsive and they can interact with renewables. You may ask again what our aim is. It is solar power generation—fields of sun-catching panels like you can see in the Mallee. You may ask again what our aim is. It is new gas-fired power stations. This government introduced the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism, which has started to bring gas prices down and has not stifled investment in gas exploration.

You may again ask what our aim is. It is new pumped hydro. Snowy Hydro, started by Prime Minister Ben Chifley when the Labor Party used to stand for something, is going to be completed and commissioned by Prime Minister Morrison in the next term and the term after that.

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