Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Those on the Labor benches might think this is very funny but, I'll tell you what, Laurie is not laughing. The 85 employees are not laughing. They don't find it funny at all, $200,000 in addition just for their energy bill. Do you know what it's going to be, most likely, this time next year? They've been advised that their energy bills may, in fact, double by this time next year. What does that mean to Laurie? What does that mean to his employees? I can assure you, Laurie does not find it funny.

Not only does Laurie's business suddenly get squeezed—because his costs are going up—but also he's competing against international players whose costs are not going up, because their energy prices aren't. So, of course, he is finding it harder in the marketplace. He makes less profit. To the extent to which those increased costs from energy have to be passed on, do you know who pays for it? It's the everyday household. It's mum and dad as they go to the local IgA, the local food store, and they buy their jam, their bread and their milk. Everything is going up, and Australians know it. Yet this government is patting itself on the back, when it comes to energy.

Only a Labor government congratulates itself for ensuring prices go sky high. Only a Labor government does that. The counterfactual argument being put by the government is that prices could have been worse if they'd kept with their first set of dumb policies in the first six months of government. But they have a new set of dumb policies, and they think these dumb policies are better than their last dumb policies.

Dumb and dumber doesn't sell to the Australian public, because they know the truth. They know the truth because every single time they open up their power bill they see Labor's promise of a $275 reduction being broken. Family budgets are breaking. There is nothing in this federal budget to help middle Australia on this stuff. Not a thing. Yet Labor will continue to come in here and laugh.

It's one thing to mock and giggle and laugh and carry on in this parliament, as the real Australians are doing it tough, but what makes it even worse is that we have the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, together with the Prime Minister, claiming that his energy policies are driving prices down. He continues to say that Labor's policies are driving prices down. We all know the truth: prices are going up. They are prepared to tell that untruth to the Australian people.

How many times, despite price rises right across the country for families and small businesses, will we have the minister responsible claiming that he is delivering the cheapest form of energy Australia's ever seen? You can't keep that deception up and think the mob won't work you out. Every single time, they know power bills are going up. We know from the default market offer and the Victorian default offer that prices are going up.

We have the minister across the table trying to argue, but prices are going up. Middle Australia is feeling it, even if you're not feeling it. Even if you don't care about it, middle Australia cares about it, because they're paying the bills.

The Minister for Climate Change and Energy is telling everybody it's the cheapest form of energy that could ever be delivered, but prices are going up. He knows the truth. We can't give him the benefit of the doubt and say that this is just unconscious incompetence. This is conscious incompetence. The Labor Party knows precisely what it is doing. It is restricting supply of gas in the market, which is only making it worse. It keeps this false promise on its website of a reduction in power bills, despite middle Australia feeling the pain.

They're not laughing. The senior citizens of this country are coming into winter, and I can assure you they're not laughing. I wonder how many older Australians happen to turn on question time, hear one of their local MPs ask a question on their behalf to the Prime Minister about energy bills, and hear the Prime Minister stand and laugh—absolute hubris, when we have middle Australia hurting right now.

Honourable members interjecting—

Still we have Labor Party MPs that think it's funny. Middle Australia does not think it is funny. Middle Australia is not laughing. Middle Australia is in pain right now because of a suite of energy policies that are driving prices up. It does not matter how much callous indifference is betrayed by the Labor government. It doesn't make their lives easier. Not one measure in the budget addressed this issue. Middle Australia continues to be in an enormous amount of pain. It doesn't matter whether it's the Prime Minister, whether it's the responsible minister or whether it's the entire Labor frontbench or backbench. They somehow find humour in the misery of middle Australia, and they are defying them by doing nothing to help. (Time expired)

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