James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I concur with the previous speaker. The government will absolutely be judged on what they deliver for the people of Australia. From what they said in their budget last night, they're going to deliver a spectacular increase in electricity prices over the next two years. This matter of public importance was a great opportunity for members of the government because implicit in it is the suggestion that the Labor Party lied at the last election, when they said that they were going to reduce power prices by $275. If I was a member of a government that was going to honour that promise, I would have lined up speaker after speaker to say: 'No, we stand by that. We did not lie to the people of Australia during the election campaign and we stand by the commitment we made, a solemn commitment, on one of the most important things—the household budget. We stand by that commitment, and the suggestion that it will not be delivered is absolutely incorrect. We look forward to going to the next election proving that we have delivered on that promise—thus, securing support for re-election.'

Instead, what have we had from all of the speakers so far? Frankly, it was a bit too incoherent to recap. Some of them weren't even talking about electricity prices but there's not a lot of content from those opposite when it comes to defending a proposition that electricity prices are going up, having committed to the people of this country that by voting for them, they would be reducing them. I've got some advice for the Labor Party. Firstly, don't lie to people in an election campaign. Don't tell them you will reduce their electricity prices—one of the most significant things in the household budget—and then get elected and break that promise. Do not do that to people. It is absolutely disgusting. It's actually beyond politics. If we've gotten to the point where you say something like that to people and 25 million Australians say, 'Look, there's one of the two major parties—one of the two options for government—has given a commitment that if I vote for them, my bills are going to fall by $275 a year', and then you break that promise within six months, it is a disgraceful situation for politics to be in this country. Secondly, if you're the Labor Party and you did lie, come clean about it. Just come clean and say: 'Look, that's not right. We just needed to say that to get your vote and now that you've voted for us and now that we're in government, it's actually not true. We're not doing that at all. In fact, it's even better than that. Not only are we not cutting your electricity bills, we're increasing by more than 50 per cent over two years. Isn't this a funny little joke we played on you? Isn't this some great trickery?'

I hope you're all impressed and enjoying that great fraud that was committed upon the people, but stop lying about it. Tell the lie to win votes, and you'll be commensurately punished at the next election for telling that lie, and the Labor party will. But now that the election's over, let's not have this charade continuing when you handed down a budget last night that said that electricity prices are going to increase by more than 50 per cent in two years and not concede that the Labor Party's commitment at the election to reduce prices is an absolute lie.

My third piece of advice for the Labor Party is this: if the situation is as diabolical as the budget papers indicated last night, do not bury your heads in the sand and do not have members of the government come into this chamber and make all these debating points about what happened in the past. Whether or not any of those facts are true, the Labor Party were the ones who, aware of all that information, went to the last election with a commitment to reduce electricity prices, only to now say: 'It's all too hard. We've gotten into government, and it turns out this whole "running the country" thing is a little more difficult than we thought.' They are just giving up on electricity prices and handing down a budget that says, 'Electricity prices are going up, and we will also do nothing about it—absolutely nothing, except for talking about previous ministers and previous governments.'

The people of this country expect a government that understands their challenges and comes up with solutions to the problems that face this nation. The greatest problem facing this nation is clearly an out-of-control energy crisis that is going to cripple families and businesses in this country. The fact is that we've got a government that wants to say to people, 'There's a big problem, and it's not our job to solve it'. It is a great indictment upon the government, and I can't wait for the next election, because the people of Australia are going to have a lot to say about that disgraceful approach to public policy. (Time expired)

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