Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The government is now in its fifth year of office. In that time seven coal-fired power stations have closed, removing capacity equivalent to nearly six million households' power, or more than enough energy to power every home in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. After seven power station closures, why has the Prime Minister only discovered that energy supply is a problem now?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, the member for Port Adelaide has some hide, because he comes from a party that supported a motion in the Senate on 22 March this year that said:

… coal is in structural decline and has no long-term future in Australia.

Those are the words of the motion supported by the Labor opposition. The member for Port Adelaide also said to the Press Club in April of last year that Labor will introduce 'a framework to kick-start the closure' of coal-fired power stations, and at numerous other times Labor has made it very clear that it is selling out blue-collar workers in order to win Green votes in the city. That is what has happened, and as a result, in the state of South Australia, where the Northern Power Station closed, we saw energy prices dramatically increase, and we also saw the people in his own electorate have blackouts and higher electricity prices.

The Labor colleagues in Victoria—and the Leader of the Opposition should know better—described the continued operation of Hazelwood as 'disgraceful'. That is what the Labor Party has said about the continued operation of Hazelwood. The Victorian members on this side know all too well that it was the Andrews government that increased coal royalties on those coal-fired generators in the Latrobe Valley by 300 per cent. We know that Engie, the owner, with Mitsui, of Hazelwood, had said that this had caused them problems. So it was the Labor Party—the Labor Party in South Australia and the Labor Party in Victoria—that was responsible for the closure of coal-fired power stations, and now it's the Labor Party member for Shortland who won't stand up for the workers in his own electorate. The member for Hunter is happy to box on in front of the press gallery, but he is very sheepish in the parliament. He is happy to say one thing to the Newcastle Herald and happy to say another thing to the press gallery. It's the members for Shortland, Hunter, Newcastle and Herbert and the Leader of the Opposition who have sold out their blue-collar base, have walked away from the party of Chifley and Hawke, and have decided to join the party of Bob Brown and Richard Di Natale. It's the Labor-Greens alliance that the blue-collar workers and the families of Australia have to be aware of, because that is a recipe for higher electricity prices. (Time expired)