Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

On their watch, 24 of the nation's ageing coal-fired power stations announced they were closing—24 out of 28! Eight had shut by the time we came to office. Of course, those closures included Liddell, Redbank in Queensland, Wallerawang in Queensland, Anglesea, Northern Power, Playford, Morwell and Hazelwood. All of this happened, and those opposite just had their little internal debates. We had the NEG, we had various schemes—22 different schemes announced—and nothing happened. Nothing was actually adopted, which is why Andrew McKellar from ACCI has said:

Past failure … has crimped certainty for industry and investors, and left our energy sector in disarray. Australian businesses and households are now paying the price.

And now what they say is that they will wind back and oppose our Rewiring the Nation plan, our Capacity Investment Scheme, our safeguard mechanism—even though they're the ones who came up with it—the deployment of community batteries, the energy efficiency upgrades, the small business energy incentive and all the work that we're doing to provide business with certainty. That's why the Business Council of Australia, Australian Industry Group and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry stood with the Australian Conservation Foundation as well as workers representatives from the ACTU and supported this plan going forward.

Now what they say is: 'Stop all that and do nothing until the 2040s. We've got a plan, but we won't tell you how much it will cost. We will tell you that taxpayers will pay for it, but we won't tell you how many reactors there will be. We won't tell you how many gigs will be generated as a result. We won't tell you at any of the detail of how we get around planning. On the one hand, we will impose this these on communities, but, on the other hand, we will listen to them. We won't tell you what will happen when those sites are rejected.' It's not a plan; it's just a thought bubble to once again delay investment and to make it more difficult. The only thing that can happen under their plan is an escalation of power prices, which is what every expert in the energy sector knows will happen. (Time expired)

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