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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware that yesterday the Queensland Premier slammed his plan to force Queensland to privatise its electricity assets, saying:

If he wants to start a war with Queensland well he's got one because we are not selling our assets …

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It just goes to show that they have no idea when it comes to a national energy policy.

Isn't the Queensland Premier correct when she says that this government has no idea when it comes to national energy policy?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the Prime Minister just said, Labor shamelessly and disgracefully today used a tactic to shut down debate on our legislation to prevent misconduct in the energy sector, a tactic that hasn't been used for 30 years. It was so long ago, but do you know what happened 30 years ago? Labor delivered a surplus. Thirty years ago, when Taylor Swift was born, was the last time Labor delivered a surplus.

The reality is that we have legislation before the parliament which will deliver lower energy prices for Australian families, a more stable system and a better deal for businesses. The member for Hume and our government have been driving changes across the sector which have already seen some of the energy companies reduce their standing offers by 10 per cent, delivering major savings to businesses and to households. We saw the prices come down in Queensland and South Australia from July of this year. We've passed legislation through this House to abolish the limited merits review, which, if the Labor Party had done it when they were in government, would have saved consumers $6 billion. We've prevented the shortfalls in the domestic gas market that Labor set up when they ignored the warnings in their own energy paper back in 2012 and the warnings from AEMO. We, on the other hand, have ensured there is sufficient gas in the domestic market. We're putting in place storage and backup for more renewables that are coming online, and the Minister for Energy is working with his state counterparts to get a reliability guarantee put in place.

When Labor were last in office, electricity prices doubled. When the Labor Party were in office in South Australia, they had a big experiment. We've seen in other states—like in Victoria, following the closure of Hazelwood—wholesale prices go up by more than 80 per cent. We saw the same thing happen in South Australia after the closure of Northern. This is a very serious matter. This is not a time to stand with the energy companies. This is the time to stand with Australian families and businesses.