Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware that the member for Warringah and the member for New England have both threatened to cross the floor against the Prime Minister and his energy policies? Is the reason the Prime Minister is promising coal forever that he's doing everything he can to stop the former Prime Minister and the former Deputy Prime Minister from undermining his government forever?

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

I thank the honourable member for her question. I'll repeat what I said in my earlier answer: the objective has to be to ensure that Australians have access to the cheapest possible power. The member for Sydney often wants to talk about hardworking Australian families and those that are battling, and she claims to be filled with empathy for them. Well, a lot of people can't afford to pay their power bills, and they want to have lower energy bills. They want to see cheaper electricity. The reality is that the Labor policies have driven energy prices up, and we are bringing them down.

Ms Ryan interjecting—

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

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

The member for Lalor is warned. The member for Sydney will cease interjecting.

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

What has gone wrong in energy policy has been that mixture of ideology and idiocy, especially in South Australia, as the member for Port Adelaide is well aware. What we need is engineering and economics. Every form of generation has a role to play. The forms of generation have no moral characteristics; they have physical characteristics. Engineering and economics are the way to go. The National Energy Guarantee enables the technologies that do the job best at the relevant time to be deployed. It is completely technology agnostic and that is what should be adopted, because, as every leading business group and industry group around the country reaffirms, it will deliver the investment certainty we need. It will deliver more reliable power and it will deliver more affordable power. If there's going to be a unity ticket in this chamber, surely more reliable and more affordable energy would be that unity ticket? But, apparently not. Labor is still committed to ideology and idiocy, which can only have one result: less reliable and less affordable power. That is not fair to the hardworking Australian families the Labor Party claims to care about.