Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank honourable members for their contributions to the debate on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Australian Energy Regulator Separation) Bill 2024. The bill seeks to establish a legally separate Australian Energy Regulator, the AER, as distinct from the ACCC to provide greater management and financial autonomy for our energy regulator, enhancing its ability to manage resources and set its strategic direction. This will allow the AER to respond with agility to changing energy consumer needs and to focus with greater clarity on energy security, reliability and affordability for energy consumers.

It's a reform that was supported by three separate ministerial council processes or inquiries during the time of the previous three-term, nine-year coalition government. It's an utterly sensible reform that the previous government didn't manage to deliver. As I say, what it will mean is that the AER can do an even better job when it comes to delivering energy security, reliability and affordability for energy consumers.

To pick up on the contribution to the debate made by the member for New England, the member took the opportunity to range widely on a whole series of aspects of—I don't really know what, to be honest—energy, perhaps, to some degree, the economy more broadly and various other things. It is hard to hear someone talk about the dignity of human beings when they were a member of a government that inflicted robodebt on the poorest and most vulnerable Australians and when they were part of a government that led to the share of income for ordinary working Australians falling to the lowest level in Australian history, and they now propose to inflict the most expensive form of energy on all Australians, paid for entirely by taxpayers, in a way that will put serious imposts on precisely the people that the member for New England claims to represent. It is a bit hard to hear that lecture.

The reform we're making with this bill, which was recommended, as I said, by three separate ministerial council processes to the previous government, will enhance Australia's energy market governance arrangements, allowing the AER to be responsible for its own resources and administrative arrangements and contributing to a strong and independent energy regulator that will ensure energy consumers across Australia are better off for many years to come. It will literally make sure that Australian energy consumers have cheaper, more reliable and more affordable energy. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

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