Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian people deserve honesty from their Prime Minister. Before the election, the Prime Minister repeated his promise to cut electricity bills by $275 on no fewer than 15 occasions. Labor were elected on this promise to the Australian people. It was very clear. This was the Prime Minister's commitment to Australia before the election. What has happened since the election? I will tell you what has happened: the lights have gone out on the Prime Minister's commitment. In fact, do members of this House know how many times the Prime Minister has repeated this commitment since the election? Zero. The Prime Minister has not mentioned it once. In fact, he seems to be more concerned about playing politics than honouring his commitment to ease cost of living pressures for Australians. We've asked him every single day in question time, multiple times, if he is going to deliver on his commitment to the Australian people, but he has shown us very clearly that he has abandoned Australians. Much like their commitment to have a plan to tackle the cost of living, to get wages moving, to back industry and to make more things in Australia, this promise to reduce power prices is no longer. So ashamed are the government of their inability to deliver for the Australian people that they now just want us to forget. But families and businesses in my electorate of Lindsay aren't going to forget. Families who are dreading the next power bill aren't going to forget. Small businesses fighting rising costs aren't going to forget.

ABS data shows electricity prices increased on average by 12.9 per cent when Labor was last in government compared to just 0.3 per cent during the last coalition government. We've spent the best part of the last two days debating climate legislation that isn't necessary, that is simply an exercise so the Prime Minister and his government can gloat and parade around as though they have delivered meaningful results for Australians. I know one thing for sure: the coalition between Labor and the Greens on climate change will not lower power prices. It will not see a reduction in household power bills. It will only drive up the costs as the government becomes beholden to the Greens' radical climate agenda.

This broken promise from the Prime Minister, though, shouldn't surprise us. After all, this is a Prime Minister who did not know the cash rate, didn't know the unemployment rate, didn't know Australia's borders were open and didn't know his own NDIS policy. If he didn't know these important bits of information, how could anyone expect him to know how to honour a commitment to reduce power prices?

In June, the Leader of the House told Sky News:

We're behind the modelling that was there and the impact of what we're going to do, particularly through transmission that allows you to get cheaper energy on the grid.

I wonder if the member still stands by that statement today. In that same week, the Prime Minister was asked by the Weekend Australia whether the power bill cut was out the window. His response was to say:

… we are dealing with a circumstance which is a direct result of a failure to give business the certainty that they needed to invest.

This is a Prime Minister who always blames everyone else.

Meanwhile, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy is more interested in standing at the dispatch box and trialling his stand-up comedy routine than delivering power price reductions for struggling Australian families. The people of Australia are not interested in this government's jokes. It is fast becoming obvious that this government doesn't have a plan beyond empty, hollow campaign announcements.

We have a message for the Prime Minister: government is all about making tough decisions in tough circumstances and delivering what you have promised to the Australian people. The Prime Minister said it's the job of a Prime Minister to deal with the challenges that Australia faces and not to constantly blame someone else. Well, it's time, Prime Minister. It's time that you fess up to the Australian people, take responsibility and deliver those cuts in power prices that you promised during the election.

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