Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that under his discredited forced divestment laws the government could force Tasmania to sell off its state owned electricity assets. When so many Tasmanians are already doing it tough, why does the Prime Minister want to make life even harder by privatising Tasmania's electricity assets, which will put up power prices?

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

If I were the member for Braddon, in Tasmania, and I wanted to stand up for the constituents of Braddon, do you know what I'd be doing? I'd be rejecting Labor's big new property tax, because Labor's big new property tax is going to hurt 3½ thousand people in the electorate of Braddon. Labor's big new retiree tax will hurt more than 3½ thousand people in the electorate of Braddon. I say to the member for Braddon, 'If you want to stand up for your constituents and if you want to stand up for the people of Tasmania, support us on this side of the House and our low-tax, high-growth agenda.'

When it comes to energy, no side of politics has put more investment into Tasmania than the Liberal-National government. We support pumped hydro facilities across your state. We support another interconnector from your state to the mainland. We support renewable energy projects, wind projects, across your state of Tasmania. What we are doing is opening up new opportunities for energy users and for energy producers across the state of Tasmania.

The real question for the member for Braddon is: what problem does she have with a piece of legislation that could potentially force a divestment of an asset as a last resort if the conduct of the company is dishonest, in bad faith, fraudulent for the purpose of manipulating prices, and the divestiture order made by a court is proportionate and targeted to the conduct? What's wrong with that? I say to the people of Tasmania: no government assets will be privatised in the state of Tasmania. I also say to the people of Tasmania that we are standing with you to deliver lower energy prices. We want to see families in the electorates of Braddon and Denison, and families right across the electorates of Tasmania, benefit from the policies, the ideas and the projects of a Liberal-National government, which are only designed to do one thing: send prices lower for Australian families and Australian businesses.