Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my honourable friend for her question and her leadership of her businesses in Bendigo, which I enjoyed visiting with her, as all ministers have, on many occasions. She is an excellent member of parliament for regional Victoria.

Here in the Albanese government, we know that energy costs are a huge issue for businesses, big and small, right across the country, and that is why we have acted. In the face of rising energy costs around the world last year, and in the face of evidence that Australian industry, particularly in relation to gas prices, would come under huge pressure this year, and that many industries would be faced with the decision to stay open or closed, we acted.

We've seen, as the minister for industry has updated us, the impact of that action in the last week. We've seen the ABS data showing that, instead of an expected increase in the cost of energy for manufacturers of over 30 per cent, those costs have gone down 1½ per cent. Instead of going up more than 30 per cent, they went down 1½ per cent. We saw it also last week in the Quarterly energy dynamics report, which showed that wholesale prices are 60 per cent lower today than they were a year ago. This is the direct impact of this government's intervention.

We know that industries and businesses went to see the opposition and begged them to support this intervention. They asked them to act in a bipartisan way to protect Australian industry, and they got the hand: 'Go away. We're not interested; we're going to play politics.' Yet the opposition come in here day after day and pretend to care about energy prices. Instead of asking questions about higher energy prices, they could vote for lower energy prices, and they made their choice. They made their decision. We know that we need to act in the short term and in the medium and long term. We need to act for businesses small and large. That's why, in addition to the intervention last year, which the opposition did not support, the budget contained further measures of support for Australian small businesses.

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