Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

This motion is about blackouts, this motion is about energy and this motion is about what we can do to secure our future. We've just heard the member for Lyons talking about the Liberal government. He forgets also that the Nationals were in government with the Liberals. It's not always and all about the Liberal Party. Whilst I appreciate he's against the Liberals in Tasmania, the National Party was very much in a coalition government and is still in coalition with the Liberal Party. We will do everything that we can, united together, to hold this Labor-Greens-Teals government to account for high energy prices.

When it comes to energy prices, the now Prime Minister, the member for the inner-city Sydney seat of Grayndler, promised on no fewer than 94 occasions prior to the May election last year that power bills would be reduced by $275. I can well recall that social media tile popping up everywhere. No doubt it was boosted and sponsored by the Labor dirt unit to get out there to convince voters to put the number 1 beside the ALP candidate in their electorate. But there was no asterisk and then little riders or disclaimers saying that it was $275 by the year 2025. There was no disclaimer to say anything of the sort. It said that the Labor Party, in government, would reduce power prices by $275. It was a porky. It was a fib. Call it a lie, as so many have, because it wasn't true. It hasn't rung true.

Indeed, energy prices under the former coalition government came down by eight per cent in the last 12 months of its government. My energy prices at home came down, as did other people's home power bills, as did, just as importantly, the bills of business and small business. They are doing it so tough at the moment. They are the ones who go out every day and take risks. They employ people. They make things. They provide services. They have not been looked after by this Labor government, which came to office promising so much and which has delivered so little, so very precious little, in the time it's been in office since May last year. They've talked about a lot of things—things which haven't made a tangible, practical difference to the lives of ordinary, everyday Australians or to the benefit of small business, which runs this country. Those opposite have been happy to say that they are going to have home-grown, made-in-Australia, modern manufacturing, but, at the same time, they're shutting down the very source of power that those businesses, manufacturers and industry sector rely so heavily upon.

But don't take my word for it. I would encourage those opposite to talk to one of our meat-processing plants. I appreciate, at the moment, that they're making a small killing, pardon the pun, on the fact that animals—cattle, sheep—are realising such low prices at the markets. Indeed, a West Australian farmer offered 600 breeding ewes for free if someone just came and took them away. That's because of the live animal export ban. If the farmers aren't getting anything at the market and the prices haven't come down at the supermarket, the meat-processing plants are making, as I said, a killing. But they are also paying high energy costs—they, manufacturers, everybody right across this nation. What we're going to see come this summer is stress upon our energy grid. What we will see is blackouts. As sure as God made little green apples, we are going to see blackouts, and it's on Labor's watch. What are they doing about it? They are doing diddly squat, nothing at all. (Time expired)

See this speech in context