Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

While I note the sincerity and the thoughtful contribution by the member for Indi, I would not be holding our collective breath if we're waiting for this current minister for energy to come up with anything that resembles an energy policy of any coherence in the country. When we look back on history and ask ourselves what the point of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments was, it certainly won't have been to deliver coherent energy policy for our country, an energy plan that can deliver our nation reliable, clean and secure energy into the future in a much-advancing and rapidly-changing grid. As the world evolves around us, Australia sits still under the watch of this government and under the watch of this energy minister.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Bill 2019, also known as the big-stick legislation, is a classic example of a government who, instead of having a plan to actually reform our energy market, gives us a big stick. While this bill, after the amendments put forward by the member for Hindmarsh as well as the second reading amendment put forward by the member for Rankin, can be supported, it can't stop with this bill. The original concerns put forward by the Labor Party in regards to this bill were to ensure that this bill didn't become a tool for backdoor privatisation. We didn't want to have a situation where workers were fighting for their rights under the Fair Work Act; therefore, we have sought amendments to ensure that those rights are safeguarded. Labor also is providing conditional support for basic worker rights and partial privatisation to be completely ruled out by the government.

This government, under their watch, have completely failed to provide energy policy to our country. It is no surprise that hardly any members of the government are coming to defend their big stick, because it is not going to provide the long-term certainty, strategy and coherent policy that our country needs. And while they dither and do nothing and have no plan for our energy market, small businesses suffer, retailers suffer, mums and dads suffer and households suffer because this government have been saying that they're going to bring down our energy prices. I think the former title of the current Minister for Emissions Reductions and Energy was the 'minister for reducing power prices'—or something that they usually put in the title of a bill—and, instead, we've got nothing. All the while, prices have gone up, gas prices have tripled, wholesale power prices across the national energy market have skyrocketed, and household budgets and retailers have felt the pressure. Thousands and thousands of manufacturing jobs are constantly being strained by this government's failure in energy policy.

So what have the government done? In typical government fashion, they have ordered reviews. Let's get a review. Let's review it. Why not? Let's have a look at the review. We had the Finkel review that led to nothing. AEMO, the Energy Security Board, industry and Infrastructure Australia have all had a look. The government have had energy minister after energy minister yet have no ability to actually bring forward a policy. We all remember when they used to have one.

The last Prime Minister who actually had an energy policy was Malcolm Turnbull. But, sadly, his time in this House was cut short by his own party. I thought that the energy crises that have constantly riddled the coalition were summed up very nicely by an article in The Guardianon 1 July 2019. The title of the article reads: Malcolm Turnbull pulled back from NEG legislation after Dutton and Pyne 'went nuts'. Dutton and Pyne went nuts, according to The Guardian. I'll read a small excerpt of the article into Hansard for the benefit of the House. In her new book, Nikki Savva says Pyne argued in favour of putting the National Energy Guarantee on ice to stop the Liberals 'leaving a trail of gore behind us'. The article went on to say:

'Turnbull’s plan was to bring the NEG on [in parliament],' Dutton is quoted as saying by Savva. 'Pyne and I went nuts.'

… … …

'It was never going to happen. There were 20 people on our side who were not going back to their electorates with photos of them sitting next to Tanya Plibersek voting on a motion supporting climate change.'

'It would have been a complete disaster for the government. We effectively had the bill pulled.'

Now that's what life's like inside the coalition party room, where you have the moderates and the conservatives both working together to pull down energy policy by the former Prime Minister. So what happens? The then energy minister, now Treasurer, left parliament without a bill. It worked out okay for him; he ended up becoming the Treasurer. We all remember the smile from ear to ear that he had walking out of that sorry caucus room after having an awkward exchange with the Prime Minister and a photo out the front. But of course the then Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, did not survive that exchange and that was the final nail in the political career of Malcolm Turnbull. Instead of providing energy certainty, certainty to investors and a coherent climate policy, Dutton and Pyne went nuts. I think that says it all about the ability of the Liberals to provide coherent energy policy.

I was listening in my office to the prior debate. The Greens are continuing to lay on their lectures to everyone else in this House. Now, I at least acknowledge the fact that the Greens want to bring down our emissions. That's a good thing. But we cannot forget the fact that a decade ago Tony Abbott, the former Prime Minister, and his partner in crime Christine Milne, voted together to kill off the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, the CPRS. That brought on a decade of policy inertia. Yet not once have we heard from the Greens that they take responsibility for voting with Tony Abbott to kill off any chance for Australia to have a coherent policy to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Not once has the member for Melbourne come into this place and said, 'You know what? We got that wrong.' I haven't heard any Greens senator in the other place say, 'Maybe if we had our time over we wouldn't have voted with Tony Abbott to kill off our country's chances of tackling climate change.' Not once did that happen, and I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the Greens to come into this place and admit that they got that one utterly and definitely wrong.

So, what have we got now? We have a federal government without an energy policy and without a plan. We have a federal government that, instead of providing our country and our investors with the certainty and the direction and the vision to actually create sustainable, clean, reliable energy in this country, has given us a big stick. Let's contrast that to what's been happening in some of the states, because there hasn't been failure around the entire country. Rather, the failure has been prevalent inside the Liberal and National parties here in Canberra.

Let's start with Victoria. There is legislation on the books, passed through the parliament, outlining climate targets. There is a bill on the books in Victoria that moves us towards net zero emissions by 2050. Victoria has a renewable energy target, which is creating thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs, not just in the inner city, as I know many like to label it, but thousands of jobs in the burbs and in rural and regional Victoria. It is creating jobs for Victorians building wind turbines. One is at the old Ford factory, which I spoke about the other day. After those opposite goaded the car industry to leave this country, the Geelong Ford factory was shut down. Now, thanks to the investments made and the policy certainty given by the Victorian government, wind turbines are being manufactured in Geelong at the old Ford factory.

Hazelwood, a large coal mine and power plant in the Latrobe Valley has been shut down. While the Greens celebrated, the Labor Party took a very different approach. The Labor government got to work. We didn't leave the thousands of workers and their families to just deal with the situation with Hazelwood closing down. We got to work providing training, skills and transition support. We also got to work creating Solar Victoria, the new government agency that now operates out of the La Trobe Valley, that was designed in order to oversee the installation that will see 650,000 Victorian homes sitting underneath solar panels to reduce the power bills of Victorian families. We had a renewable energy target and thousands of jobs being created, helping workers transition. We had a coherent climate policy, supporting workers, creating Solar Victoria, bringing down power prices and providing certainty to those companies that want to invest in Victoria.

Let's now swing around and have a look at what happened in Canberra. Well, as The Guardian says, Dutton and Pyne went nuts. There has been policy failure, with 15 different energy policies—none of which have provided certainty to the market—and weak targets. There have been cries of help from industry, met with absolutely nothing. We now have dead cats thrown onto the table, and the government and the energy minister asking the Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy to look at nuclear energy—something that's not going to bring down our emissions in the next decade, something that is very expensive and something that we currently don't have the ability to manufacture and create and oversee in this country. And we have a scandal-ridden energy minister, on top of a big stick.

That is the difference. It's the Labor government in Victoria—which has been getting to work and providing certainty for businesses and support for families, bringing down power prices by providing solar panels on their homes, and has a coherent energy policy with a vision for the future—versus the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government in Canberra, under which we get a big stick.

So, when we ask ourselves, as I asked at the start of this speech—and I know the member for Fraser here often asks this question of himself—'What is the point of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government?' there is no answer. History won't be kind. There's no plan for connecting renewable energy. There's no plan for building transmissions. There's no plan to support small businesses. There's no plan to bring down our energy prices. There's no plan to provide certainty for investment. There's no plan to create an energy policy that will actually transition Australia, not just in the next 10 years but in the next 20 years. There's no plan to support renewable energy—the cheapest form of energy, according to AEMO in their latest GenCost report. There is no plan from this government, because all they've got is a big stick.

This country deserves better. The workers, the small businesses and the families deserve better. We stand with people and with families who rely on lower power prices—but, unfortunately, they're not going to get them from this government.

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