Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Those opposite have come in here today to try to tell us that we don't have a plan to address the issue of surging power prices which impact hard-working families like those in my electorate of Hunter, like the type of family that I grew up in. I will not stand here and be told that Labor does not understand the struggles of the working people. I will not stand here and allow that from those opposite, who like to play dress-ups and pretend they understand what it's like for the everyday Australian family to be hit with an increased energy price, when they knew it was coming.

You guys knew it was coming. Yes, they deliberately and, some may say, conveniently, hid the report when they knew that Australian households would be hit in the hip pocket by an increase in power prices. Instead of warning families in the Hunter electorate, they decided it would be better for them to keep it to themselves. They decided that warning real people about real issues that would have a real impact on their lives was less important than winning the votes of those same people who they claim to care about. Well, look how that turned out for them. I hope the seats on that side are comfy, because they sure are over here.

The opposition claim that we don't have a plan. Well, let me say something to the opposition: not only do we have a plan to address this issue but we also have the guts to acknowledge it. We have the guts to go to the Australian people and be upfront, instead of pretending we didn't know and letting it hit Australians in the face as if it came out of nowhere. What this budget has confirmed is that we don't play politics with people's lives. If you want to see a government without a plan to address an energy crisis, just cast your mind back 160 days. Yes, that's right—we've only been in government for 160 days. The issue that exists now was certainly around before the election.

The previous government oversaw four gigawatts of dispatchable power leaving the grid with only one gigawatt replacing it. The previous government hid the delays on major projects like Snowy Hydro, keeping the public in the dark on the issues that matter to them. It's like they've loosened all of the nuts and bolts on the dining-room table and then, when they've gone and sat at it, they're yelling and screaming, claiming that it was all those other ones who broke it.

How are we going to fix it, you ask? By investment, such as with $224 million for the community batteries and households solar grants programs. This will deploy 400 community-scale batteries for up to 100,000 Australian households. We've already got one that AGL has just done in the Hunter, and it's going amazingly. We'll introduce reforms to the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism, which will modernise our energy market regulation with our states and territories and also increase the monitoring and oversight of the gas market.

These challenges are difficult. We know that, and we know that they won't away overnight. But it will happen. We have a plan to work with the states and the private sector. We are investing $20 billion into the transmission grid to make our energy system more reliable. We aren't sitting back and watching the world go by; we are getting out there and getting things done. We are doing the work that should have been done a decade ago. We're rewiring the nation and getting more renewable energy in the grid, instead of flip-flopping around like those opposite did for ten years. Was it 25 or 27 energy policies and plans that the previous government had in the last decade? It's hard to keep track, but it's more than my fingers and toes put together. There's no excuse for this, especially since those who play dress-ups opposite even had two energy ministers at the same time when the Prime Minister so generously offered himself to take on the portfolio as well. Surely ScoMo could have helped out his mate Angus Taylor—

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