Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

In fact, I hear a few of them still denying it right now over there, true to style. But we won't put our heads in the sand like them. We wouldn't do that to the families and businesses in Australia, who deserve cleaner, cheaper energy. Our Powering Australia policy will be key in ensuring we have an energy system that will serve us well into the future. It's about backing Australian workers and creating jobs, cutting power bills and reducing emissions by boosting renewable energy. These are all policies that have a direct impact on the hip pocket of families and businesses.

As part of this vision, the opposition might need to be reminded of our Rewiring the Nation plan, a policy that invests $20 billion to modernise transmission in our power grid, to unlock greater investment in renewables and to enable greater uptake in the National Energy Market. While those opposite were in government we were left with an aging power grid which was acting as a barrier, a literal, physical barrier, to the uptake of renewables. Our government is making sure there's nothing holding us back in going full speed towards our renewable, cheaper, cleaner energy future. We've invested more than $200 million in establishing 400 community batteries across the country, with one in Alphington in my electorate. Again, this policy will unlock households' access to cheaper, cleaner energy.

I would be remiss not to ask if maybe they were thinking of another incredible policy announcement we made this week, the appointment of a chair and advisory board of the Net Zero Economy Agency. What those opposite failed time and time again to recognise is that workers deserve a government that will proactively support them through a transition to a clean energy economy. That's why we established the Net Zero Economy Agency. When I was President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, it was my privilege to speak with workers right across the country. I heard exactly what it was like on the ground. Our government understands that we absolutely cannot talk about easing the cost of living and transitioning to a clean energy future without thinking of the impact on those workers. We will absolutely not leave them behind. If the opposition want to sit there and make ridiculous claims that we don't understand the financial pressure that workers and their families face, I'll simply point them to this policy.

We've done all of this, and there is policy after policy making sure that Australians are coping with the rising cost of living right now. We've unlocked billions of dollars of investment in new energy generation despite the blocking tactics of those opposite. You've heard the moniker of the 'no-alition', Madam Deputy Speaker, and what an accurate descriptor that is. This is an opposition that actually voted against making prices hundreds of dollars lower. It absolutely beggars belief. All those opposite do is say no. We put forward plans to get more energy into the system; they say no. We bring in legislation to cut wholesale power bills; they say no. We intervene in the market to stymie increases to power bills; they say no. In fact, after we intervened in the market to ensure households were protected from the worst of the power price hikes, they didn't just say no; the Leader of the Opposition went much further, saying, 'Just like Reagan, we will wind back government intervention.' Amazing! What an inspirational leader—just what the people of Australia have been crying out for.

This is the Leader of the Opposition who seriously suggested, in his budget reply speech no less, that the solution to power price hikes is nuclear energy. Here we go again—the old nuclear power solution. It's an oldie but a goodie. It's been discredited as too slow, too expensive, potentially dangerous, a white elephant—the list goes on.

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