Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I did have a speech but I will put that aside for a minute. The idea—the absolute nonsense of an idea—that you somehow can put in some form of carbon tax and that it will unleash some type of investment strike is the complete and utter rubbish and nonsense that the Labor Party are peddling in this House!

There is no investment strike in energy. We are seeing billions of dollars of investment at the moment into wind turbines and solar. But the problem is that it is complete malinvestment that is distorting the market, and it is the subsidies for those through the renewable energy target that is putting higher and higher costs onto the price of electricity and adversely affecting not only industry in this country but also consumers.

If anyone is concerned and wants to know why we have such high electricity prices in this country, they should look at those opposite and look at the mess in South Australia. South Australia now has the highest electricity prices in the world! The highest in the world! What a magnificent achievement! And what do Labor want to do? They want to copy South Australia! They say, 'Look at the brilliant work in South Australia, with their 50 per cent renewable energy target. We will copy them!' You couldn't make this madness up, and yet that is what every member of the Labor Party wants to do. They want to turn all of this nation into South Australia and give this entire nation the highest prices for in the world for electricity. They are obviously ignorant of electricity in this country. They do not care about jobs, they do not care about households and they do not care about their constituents. They are living a green dream that is destroying this nation. (Time expired)

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, at times some of the hottest and coldest places in the country, the rising cost of energy bills is hurting. Only last month we saw electricity bills rise by as much as 20 per cent. This hurts families and businesses. Families are already struggling with the lowest wages growth we've seen, under this lot. It's a double-edged sword for businesses because people have less disposable income, and now their overheads in keeping the lights and the fridges on are skyrocketing.

So what's the government's answer? Bills will be easier to read! That's the big thing that came out of their crisis meeting yesterday. The only crisis we're seeing here is a crisis of leadership from the Prime Minister, cowed by the large energy companies. Surely having easy-to-read bills, being able to switch plans and not lose your discount if you are a day late paying a bill are just basic consumer protections that we should be able to take for granted.

The government's delusional if it thinks this is going to solve our energy crisis. It needs to change what drives those prices. Fact 1: under this government, wholesale electricity prices have doubled, and that's why everyone's bills are higher. Fact 2: large coal plants have closed in a chaotic way, in a policy vacuum, hurting workers. Therefore, fact 3, we don't generate enough electricity. Until the industry know what the rules are, they can't make investment commitments. As the Business Council says, business as usual is no longer an option. (Time expired)