Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

In December last year—it was the Friday after the last sitting day—the now Prime Minister and his now Minister for Climate Change and Energy had all the theatrics set in place, and they made this extraordinary announcement to the Australian people of their climate change policy if they were to win government. That climate change policy consisted not of one but of two targets. One target was a 43 per cent reduction in emissions. The other target was a $275 reduction in power bills. Two numbers: 43 and 275.

In this sitting, the first sitting of the parliament, the government had the opportunity to put its policy into a bill. Both these numbers did not appeared. Forty-three and 275—guess which of these wasn't in there? Was it the 43 or the 275?

An opposition member: I think we know.

I think we do know. The 275 was gone. This represents the first broken promise of the Albanese Labor government.

This is the first promise, and they didn't waste their time. They made sure they broke their first promise in their first sitting of parliament, a promise that goes to the heart of every living room across Australia. Every single household is copping higher power bills. Every single household knows very well that they have a new government in town that went to the people making a promise of cutting power bills, and every time they open up their power bills from now on, they will be reminded that this Albanese Labor government made them a promise that their power bills would go down and not up. This is a broken promise.

What I find extraordinary is that, despite having broken a promise to the Australian people so blatantly, despite having the Prime Minister and the minister in this place over the last two weeks confirming they have abandoned this promise to the Australian people, the Australian Labor Party's official website still claims they will deliver on that promise. Still to this day today, the Australian Labor Party are untruthfully claiming to the Australian public and to Australian businesses that they will cut their power bills.

You can look it up right now. That's what the Labor Party promises, still to this day, but the Prime Minister and the minister have refused in this place, in this chamber, to confirm that's what they're going to do. But we know they're going to abandon that promise. When they made the promise in the first place—and we've heard it from the Prime Minister already in this sitting—it was the most comprehensive economic modelling apparently ever done by any opposition. That's their claim. The $275 was based on the most comprehensive economic modelling ever done in the history, since Australian Federation, of any opposition. They are already walking away from it.

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