Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

HASTIE () (): During the election, Labor promised to cut power bills by $275. They said it 97 times, and yesterday the Prime Minister doubled down on how he plans to achieve the impossible. If you have renewables investment, he said, then you will have cheaper prices. But that's not what the budget says. It says power bills are set to rise by 56 per cent over the next two years. The power bills of Australian families will rise by an average of $1,000 over the next 18 months.

The truth is that the Prime Minister, Labor and the Greens cannot point to a single nation where increasing the number of solar panels and wind turbines in the energy grid has led to cheaper electricity. This week the Grattan Institute put it bluntly. Their director of energy policy, Tony Wood, told media:

It's stupid when [governments] keep saying we are going to bring prices down when they can't …

So where does that leave the Prime Minister's $275 promise? Families across Australia are already feeling the pressure of high energy bills and interest rates and the cost of living. It's time for the Prime Minister to admit what we all know deep down: his mission to make Australia one big wind and solar farm will impact regional communities and their landscapes, it will cost us money, it will cost us jobs and it will weaken our national prosperity.