David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome any interjections on the number 275, because it is a very, very important number in Australian politics. Please, let's talk about 275, because it is a really important number. You know how there is a word of the year each year? If you had a number of the year, this year it would be 275. Do you know what else? It is not only the number of 2022; 275 is going to be the number of 2023. It is going to be the number of 2024. I will tell you what else: it is most definitely going to be the number of 2025. That's because this is the number that is at the centre of Australian politics. It's a number that Australians remember. Everyone is talking about the number 275, except the government. Imagine how you would feel if you were the number 275. Before the election, you were so close with the government, but now you are the number that dare not speak its name. They were so close—275 and the government. It was an intimate relationship. When the Powering Australia policy came out, there it was, up the front: 275. It was in only the first or second sentence. The number 275 was central to that debate—front and centre.

There's a paper called MyCity Logan. I understand it has a big circulation in the Logan area. The very first sentence when the Treasurer talked to the paper about the 2022 election included the number 275. It's a very difficult thing for the number 275 to be so abandoned. The Prime Minister wrote an op-ed, and a $275 reduction was mentioned in that op-ed in the Daily Mail in March. Then at the 10 April press conference in Sydney, after a visit to the Royal Easter Show, the number 275—it had such a close relationship with the government—was mentioned again. Then, on 12 April, the Prime Minister went on Triple M in Hobart and talked about a range of issues with the usual jovial demeanour that the Prime Minister puts on in those interviews, and there it was again—the number 275. It is like how Sesame Street has a number of the day. The government's number of the day, the week, the month and the year was 275.

We heard this really weird thing from the Prime Minister today about the war in Ukraine, which, as the opposition leader said today, started in February. But 18 May was 88 days after the start of the war in Ukraine. It is quite a lot. It's not 275, but it's a lot. In the speech to the National Press Club, there it was again—$275—three days before the election. That was 88 days after the start of the war in Ukraine, and yet the promise persisted. There is, as I am sure members opposite will acknowledge, a logical problem with saying that the Ukraine war changed things when, 88 days after the war started, the Prime Minister said it to the entire nation at the National Press Club.

When the Prime Minister gave a big speech to the energy forum in August, soon after the election—it was a 3,000-word speech—the word 'energy' was mentioned 41 times, but, oddly, the number 275 was not mentioned at all. It has been not mentioned at all by those opposite since the election. Why does this matter? It matters because of the millions of Australians who listened to that discussion about the $275 electricity price cut that this government and this Prime Minister promised over and over again. That's why 275 is such an important number, and it will be for many years to come.

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