Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's been a while since I put myself in the trenches for a matter of public importance. I have missed it; I really have! It looks like we're doing another one on energy; it's almost as if I never left! I'm a sucker for nostalgia, and I know those opposite are too. This is the extent of the bipartisanship we can learn to expect from those opposite. I've always wondered whether these topics were generated by those opposite sitting in front of a computer with ChatGPT open, but I think this topic was brought to us by their chief parliamentarian tactician—a Konica Minolta beta printer. There will be carbon copies under an opposition they lead!

To use a turn of phrase often used by the member for Cook: how good would it have been if his government had an energy policy, or if he allowed the leader he was ambitious for to have one. Maybe we would have had a fighting chance on the supply side. All we were asking for was an energy policy. In nine whole years, a big fat 'no' does not count as a policy.

Every MPI, whether it be interest rates, cost of living or energy prices, is totally devoid of responsibility—and, frankly, it's only Tuesday. You'd think those opposite would have a bit of energy in them for a debate on energy! I can only imagine how uninspired their talking points must be. If they don't believe in them, I hope they at least believe in themselves. It must be hard, and it's not going to get too much better with the status quo but I'll keep checking in with them at MPI time just to make sure.

Those opposite appear coyly naive to any actions they took in government—or, as was often the case, their emissions instead. Those opposite persist on blaming our government for nine years for Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government failures, when they should instead be taking advice from Taylor Swift and coming into this place exclaiming loudly, 'It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me!' Those opposite will stare into the sun but never in the mirror. Why didn't the Prime Minister stop their government fast enough? You saw them breaking it; now you've bought it.

I'm sure those opposite think reality is a bit broken. Their friends are abandoning them. On the NRF bill we had scores of business leaders and business groups supporting the government. Even on energy we had the Business Council of Australia president publicly expressing disappointment with the opposition's stances. There is a very broad adult table on public policy now, and it looks down on the opposition choosing every single hill to die on along the way. They have zero credibility on this issue. I do not blame the opposition for Russia invading Ukraine—not one bit; even I'm not that critical of them! But it would have been nice had they possessed a cogent energy policy in the years or even months in the lead-up to Russia commencing their illegal invasion.

We knew there would be one big mess to clean up when those opposite moved out of their old home on the treasury benches, but nobody could have expected it to be this bad. We all know the member for Hume was so embarrassed that he decided to kick the mess underneath the couch on his way out. But the Albanese Labor government saw the domestic settings going against us due to the policy void left by those opposite, intersecting with pressures from abroad, and the government acted on it. We had an energy policy through the parliament within months. It didn't take us nine years, only not to have a policy at all. Those opposite can see the same numbers we can showing the default market offsets, showing that, as a direct result of government intervention, they are substantially lower than what the Australian Energy Regulator advised. I'm sure this was by accident. They'll use figures to distort the picture, but everyone has woken up to the game that those opposite are playing: the smoke and mirrors and political immaturity. With the way they are going, forget their best day in opposition; they're still to experience their worst.

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