Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is a good question, member for O'Connor. Where are the environmentalists?

That was the former Chief Scientist Alan Finkel writing. The member for Swan talks passionately about being an engineer and the importance of science. I hope she takes the word of Dr Alan Finkel and starts to advocate in the caucus to at least have the conversation, because if we don't have reliable baseload power that's cheap, we cannot manufacture in this country. I spent a decade working in food manufacturing. Energy reliability, energy security and cheap energy are crucial to making sure we continue to manufacture. One of the reasons that inflation is through the roof is that the price of energy is out of control. It impacts at every level for a food manufacturer, or any manufacturer, including in their actual materials, the raw materials they get in. Unless you have a proper strategy to bring prices down and to ensure reliability in the grid, we will lose the manufacturing base that we have in our country.

This is a government that continues to make bad decisions that are impacting Australians. They are going down the same path by refusing to have a mature conversation and by sticking to ideology on a crucial issue for the future of our country.

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