Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question about what the government did in the budget in relation to energy prices and the cost of living. I'm more than happy to answer the question because the budget provided $20 billion of funding to ensure that we rewire this country. After years of indolence by those over there who talked about the Marinus Link for 10 years, in our first six months the Prime Minister and this government made the Marinus Link a reality by working with Tasmania and Victoria to fund it. Talking about a link does not move one watt of electricity around this country; funding a link does, and that's what we did. We also funded our 400 community batteries across Australia, which will help families to store the renewable energy that they generate and to use it at a time and a place convenient to them because batteries store renewable energy, something the Leader of the Opposition has some trouble coming to terms with. The Leader of the Opposition was on the radio this morning, on 2GB, being interviewed by Ray Hadley—where the Leader of the Opposition always goes to get his toughest questions!—and he said, 'You can't store the renewable energy at the moment.' That's what the Leader of the Opposition said. The battery was invented by Alessandro Volta in 1800, but the Leader of the Opposition is still catching up with these facts. He still doesn't understand that just because the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow—nor does the rain always fall, but we manage to store water, we manage to drink water when it's not raining—

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