Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Fairfax gets a prize in my book. He should be the shadow minister for confected outrage. They had a government—his party—for 10 years that did nothing about climate change policy, that did nothing about energy policy. In fact, when I first came into parliament, the minister for energy—the member for Hume, my neighbouring electorate—struggled to even admits that climate change was happening. I live and work in Western Sydney. We know what climate change is about. Frequently we have summer temperatures over 40 degrees. We know about the cost-of-living crisis. We know what happened in the 10 years of policy stagnation in energy policy that occurred under the Liberal-National government. We know that, and they did nothing. They didn't even admit there was a problem.

Energy has been a focus for the Labor Party over the last 10 years. We have been faced with a lack of acknowledgement of climate change and a lack of commitment to effective emission controls by the previous governments, and yet now in opposition they still vote against policies that would help our energy costs and that would help our emissions policy. Just as an example, they criticised us heavily for imposing a cap on coal and gas prices. In the face of energy companies such as Woodside—which were paying a return of 12 per cent when I last looked, increasing to over 16 per cent with franking credits—the Liberal-National coalition did not want us to put a cap on a coal gas prices. That's absolutely shameful. They are a joke, and the member for Fairfax, the shadow energy minister, can come in here with his confected outrage and yet continue to vote against policies that would help the Australian people deal with energy prices and the cost-of-living difficulties that they're facing.

The fact is that Treasury predicted an over 50 per cent increase in energy prices over the next couple of years without our intervention to cap coal and gas prices. It now looks like those prices will not increase by 50 per cent. There's a 29 per cent reduction in projected increases, and that is what energy policy is really about. Yet those opposite did nothing. We recognise, and have done so for years, that energy prices are very high for businesses, individuals and families. We acknowledge that power price increases have added to the cost-of-living pressures throughout our entire economy. In my electorate of Macarthur we now have very large manufacturing companies, and their energy prices have been increasing exponentially over the last 10 or 12 years. Those opposite did nothing, yet they come in here today with their confected outrage—and I must admit the member for Fairfax has many apprentices in the confected outrage stakes. It's hard to keep a straight face. The Colonel Blimps opposite going on about—

See this speech in context