Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. His minister for energy has said:

We are moving away from coal and that is not a bad thing.

Does the minister's statement reflect government policy?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The utter inability of the Leader of the Opposition to apply any common sense to the energy problems facing Australia is incredible. How many more of your mistakes do you have to recognise before it dawns on the Labor Party that they have created a shocking energy crisis in Australia? How many more blunders have to be made? How much more renewable energy is to be introduced without any backup or storage? The stupidity of the Labor Party in government is a tragedy to behold.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, Mr Speaker: in case this is all we get, I draw your attention to direct relevance. The question goes to whether a statement from the energy minister reflects government policy.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am well aware of the question. It was short, but the Prime Minister is entitled to a preamble. He is on the policy topic. He is not a minute in yet, and I am sure he will be bringing himself to the question.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, the energy minister can no doubt elaborate on this himself, but I just make this point: I have made exactly the same observation. The reality is this: there is a transition in the energy market from thermal power to cleaner sources of generation. That is a fact. But the critical thing is to ensure that those changes do not take place at the expense of affordability and reliability. This is a question of ensuring that you have all of the above. I set this out in my speech at the beginning of the year at the Press Club. We need to make sure our energy policy is guided by engineering and economics. The problem with the Labor Party, and we have seen this in the contribution from the member for Shortland, is that they want to turn this into an anti-coal campaign. It is nonsense—it is complete and utter nonsense.

We are the largest exporter of seaborne coal in the world. We have a national vested interest in seeing coal continue to play an important role in energy generation here and around the world but at the same time contributing to reduced emissions. So, when the honourable member said clean coal is a fiction that's got no future, what he was basically saying to many of the workers in his electorate was, 'You are all out of a job.' You would think that what he would be doing, and what the Labor Party would be doing, is supporting the government in ensuring that we have a rational approach to energy that deploys every form of generation. They all have certain characteristics; they all have a lot to deliver. But, if you have a policy driven by left-wing ideology and sheer idiocy and incompetence, then that is what you get from Labor. You get gas prices going through the roof and the failure to do anything to back up renewables. Labor has been a colossal failure on energy.