Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I don't think the Venezuelans would have adopted this process. This process is more like that in dictatorships we see around the world where sham legislation is rammed through a parliament. This is sham legislation from a ramshackle government—a government falling apart before our eyes. But this legislation has very significant ramifications for consumers.

If this were a good idea, you would think it might have been recommended to the government by somebody—in fact, anybody might have recommended this to the government. We know that the ACCC didn't recommend it to the government, and the Prime Minister was disingenuous and, frankly, dishonest when talking about the ACCC's role in this before. The chairman of the ACCC said before the Senate that the ACCC had considered divestment powers and had rejected them. That's not how the Prime Minister characterised the ACCC's view before—that's not an accurate reflection of what the ACCC was doing. The ACCC explicitly rejected divestment powers as an option.

I'm a former minister for competition policy. Competition policy has been regularly reviewed in Australia. There have been eminent Australians reviewing competition policy, making recommendations for its updating. There was the Hilmer review, the Dawson review and, most recently, the Harper review. Did any of those reports recommend divestiture powers for the government or for the ACCC? Did the Hilmer report recommend that? Did the Dawson report recommend divestiture powers? Did the Harper review recommend divestiture powers? No. Silence from those opposite is the answer, because they know that none of those reports recommended those divestiture powers be implemented. The case is that this is a government which makes it up as it goes along.

It's not only the fact that the experts have rejected divestiture powers—economists and lawyers, who point out that this still has problems with the Constitution. I'm not a constitutional lawyer; I'm not a lawyer at all, for that matter. But, when constitutional lawyers identify a problem, it should, you would think, give the government pause for concern, reflection, that maybe complying with the Constitution would be beneficial and would be a superior way of doing things, and that being in breach of the Constitution would be a problem for a government. No, it doesn't make these guys slow down. They double down and move faster.

What we've got is industry group after industry group pointing out that this will do nothing to reduce power prices and will, in fact, make them higher. We saw Jennifer Westacott in The Australian Financial Review yesterday saying:

The principle that governments can misuse their power to break up companies sets a dangerous precedent that will deter investment across the economy.

This will do nothing to solve high power prices for families and businesses struggling to pay their bills today.

Ms Westacott confirmed and strengthened that view today in The Daily Telegraph. The Ai Group chief executive, Innes Willox, after the rewriting, said that industry still held grave concerns about the powers, despite the changes, and he implored the government to instead re-embrace the National Energy Guarantee to give industry the investment framework that it craved and that would, in time, bring down power prices. He said that energy and climate policy had been 'the worst piece of policy in a couple of generations'. We certainly agree with that in relation to the last five years. He said, 'The NEG at least gives us a pathway out.' That is right.

The Leader of the Opposition has made it clear that we are happy to support a National Energy Guarantee. We're happy to sit down and negotiate with you. We'll just have none of this nonsense, this drivel that we had from the minister at the table, that it's about a 45 per cent target. A National Energy Guarantee—as the minister should know—is a framework; it's a mechanism. The target can be set by the government of the day—and, as we stand, they are still the government, although they don't behave like it. This mob opposite are still technically the government of Australia, even though they have given up governing. Even though they are imploding before our eyes, they still hold their commission as the government. They haven't had the courage to hand it in, even though they probably should. The fact of the matter is that the government of the day set the target, and the National Energy Guarantee could be a framework for which the government of the day could set the target. If they want a lower target than the Labor Party does, they could set it. Then, if there were a change of government, after the election, it could be reviewed as part of the National Energy Guarantee. But no: the government are against the National Energy Guarantee, when just a few months ago they were telling us that it was absolutely vital to put downward pressure on prices.

I doubt that the government is going to provide many speakers on this bill, because why would any 'true Liberal', to coin a phrase, want to associate themselves with this piece of interventionist nonsense? So, I doubt that we'll get many government members. But if there were a government member willing to put their name to this piece of nonsense that the House has before it, this legislation that was hastily drafted and is not in keeping with good and proper government, they might explain to us who recommended this. Did the ACCC recommend it? Did the Dawson, Harper or Hilmer review recommend it? Did any review of competition policy or energy policy over the past two decades recommend it? Did anybody recommend it? The minister at the table is welcome to elucidate and share with the House where this idea came from. Who recommended it to the government? I accept that the government can come up with its own ideas. It doesn't need them to be recommended. But wouldn't you think that at some point, with all the discussion there's been about energy policy in Australia—with all the debate, with all the views that have been expressed—somebody somewhere who's sensible would have said: 'Do you know what we need? We need a big stick. That's what we need. We need a slogan, and we need the government of the day to be able to force the divestiture of the energy companies.'

The fact of the matter is that this is poor policy made up by a government and a minister, who's at the table, who's completely out of his depth when it comes to this.

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