Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Energy. Will the minister update the House on action the government is taking to reduce power prices and help families and small businesses both in my electorate of Fisher and across South-East Queensland? Will the minister provide an update on how alternative schemes would hurt Australian families?

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

I thank the member for Fisher for his question. Firstly, commiserations to the member for Port Adelaide—losing to the member for Lilley really is an insult! The member for Fisher knows there is a real difference between the energy policy of the Labor Party and the energy policy of the coalition. Under the Labor Party, your power prices will go up. The Labor Party is the party of blackouts and the party of reckless renewable energy targets. Under the coalition, you'll always pay less for your power.

Just look at the Labor Party's record. When they were last in office, power prices doubled. Each and every year, when the Labor Party were last in office, power prices went up. We had the $15 billion dreaded carbon tax. We had the cash for clunkers. We had the pink batts. We had the citizens' assembly. Labor ignored the warnings in their own energy white paper about what it would mean for domestic gas prices to export more from the east coast of Australia—and they gave a green light to the gold plating of the poles and wires, something we are still paying for.

In contrast, the coalition abolished the carbon tax, and we saw the single biggest drop in power prices ever recorded. We've stopped the networks gaming the system. If the Labor Party had done it, we would have saved $6½ billion for consumers. We've ensured more gas is available for domestic customers before it's exported overseas. We're getting a better deal from the retailers for millions of Australian customers, and the National Energy Guarantee, which has the support of the big energy users—the BlueScopes, the BHPs, the Rio Tintos, the irrigators, the National Farmers' Federation and others—will, for the first time, integrate energy and climate policy, reduce power prices and create a more reliable system.

In the last fortnight the big three have reduced their power prices across New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia. This is something we never saw from the Labor Party. Under the Labor Party, power prices went up each and every year. If you're an EnergyAustralia customer in Brisbane with a small business—a cafe or a hairdresser—you will save around $470 a year. If you're a household in Brisbane with EnergyAustralia, you'll save just under $100 a year. So come these by-elections in Braddon, Mayo and Longman, the choice is clear: only the coalition will deliver a more affordable and reliable power system.