Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You may have noticed over the last few weeks that the Minister for Climate Change and Energy has been very active in the media, calling—in a very undignified and desperate way—for the coalition to release its energy policy. Why would the minister be so keen to try to focus on the coalition right now, do you think? I suspect it's because of his own performance.

Let's look at the last few weeks. We heard from the regulator that Labor's promise of a $275 reduction in household power bills is now dead. Some households will pay up to $1,000 more next year than what they were promised by Labor. We also heard that we might be facing blackouts as early as this summer. We've heard that from the operator. No wonder the minister doesn't want to talk about that. The minister also doesn't want to talk about the fact that Australia's emissions are now going up and not going down. The minister doesn't want to talk about that.

We heard today from another report that the transmission projects the minister spruiks are running years behind schedule. The point is that this minister is failing on every single point—on affordability, on reliability and on emissions. No wonder he doesn't want to talk about his own record, but his record is pathetic.