Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister and Cabinet) Share this | Hansard source

Residential customers who were on the higher standing offers before 1 July 2019, member for Shortland, could be better off by $666 a year in New South Wales—your home state—$590 in South Australia and $725 in South-East Queensland. We've seen what the closure of dispatchable energy power stations does, like the closure of Hazelwood. That's why the government has set a target for the electricity sector to deliver a thousand megawatts of new dispatchable energy to replace the Liddell power station before it closes down in 2023. Closing this plant without dispatchable replacement capacity risks prices rising by around 30 per cent over two years. This would be an unacceptable outcome for families, business and industry. Closing that plant will see prices rise for families, prices rise for business. That's why the government will step up and they will back a new gas power plant in the Hunter Valley if the private sector doesn't replace Liddell's capacity. This government is focused on what we can do to protect jobs, what we can do to protect businesses and families, while at the same time reducing emissions.

In my own space, I gave a speech—I'm sure members opposite tuned in on Friday to my speech to the BCA—to outline the government's deregulation agenda. It was a speech in person and it was also presented online over the World Wide Web. For this government deregulation is not about getting rid of all regulation. It's about making sure that we get rid of unnecessary regulation where it's disproportionate, where it's deficiently implemented regulation. It's about the ease of doing business. Deregulation measures have been central to the budget announcements that we've seen already and there will be more to come tonight. We need to make sure that this economy is operating at full bore in order to ensure that we can support the creation of jobs in the private sector. It's about saving time and money for businesses.

We are streamlining agricultural levies legislation and making sure that it's delivered on time. We are going to, and this is something that I'm very proud of, invest in the TGA to ensure that businesses engaging with the TGA can do so effectively and they can do so efficiently. We can get rid of the old ways of doing things .When medical businesses have to report an adverse reaction to the TGA they have to put their data in a PDF, send that data to the TGA to have it entered into their system in order to come back and give the medical business a receipt number. We can invest in technology, not so people in the economy can run wild but so we can take what is the objective of the regulation that we have. How do we make sure that we invest in technology to ensure that that objective is achieved in the most effective, efficient way, which saves time, which makes it more productive for businesses and which allows businesses to employ more people? I could talk for hours in relation to deregulation. I am excited about the government's deregulation agenda. It is an agenda that's going to make a difference to the economy and help grow jobs.

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