Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on one of the most critical issues that Australia is facing as we go through a difficult period of inflation and challenge for household budgets on energy prices. The budget was a test for the government. It was a chance and an opportunity for a new government to set the tone on what is going to be the biggest pressure on business, manufacturing, households and small business, and that is power prices. It was a test for the government, and the government didn't meet the challenge it was faced with because it has an ideological bent in relation to climate change that prevents it from pursuing good economic and engineering policies.

We've heard much in recent days from the Treasurer and Minister for Climate Change and Energy about how gas companies are to blame for gas prices going up and that it's greed that has enabled gas prices and energy prices to go up. It's like a scene out of a movie because it's so unrealistic. It's hard to imagine what audience they're speaking to. Are they trying to say that people in Australia are so silly that they think that prices have gone up purely because a bunch of executives sat around and said, 'Wouldn't it be fun to lift prices and make tonnes of money off people just for fun?' and that's why the prices have gone up? I think every member of this House knows the truth that that's not why power prices have gone up. That's not why the price of gas has gone up.

We have had supply shortages in Australia in relation to gas for some period of time. There have been perhaps a decade or more of warnings about the need to bring on a much greater supply of gas, and there are several governments in Australia—

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