Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This could very well be the last sitting of the 47th Parliament. I thought it was important to speak about small businesses and the significant challenges that they face in respect to energy prices. There are more than 27,000 businesses that have gone insolvent since the Labor government took office, which is devastating. Before parliament resumed this year I spent much of my time out and about in various communities in the electorate of Flynn, speaking to people of all backgrounds as well as hardworking small-business owners that are keeping the Australian economy going—small-business owners such as Fiona at Craig's Bakery in the Sun Valley at Gladstone, and Hardy from the Foodworks store in Biggenden. While they raised many challenges that small businesses face, the No. 1 issue is the cost of energy. Both small businesses have seen their energy prices rise some 30 per cent in the last 18 months, and this is simply not sustainable for a small business. There is only so much a small business can do to increase the price of a pie, a can of Coke or their groceries. Small-business owners like Fiona and Hardy are having to absorb these input costs, and that is making it harder and harder to do business, particularly in these small communities.

This leads me to why energy prices are becoming unaffordable for householders and businesses. It is because of Labor's reckless energy plan, which is delivering higher prices across the Flynn electorate. Late last week Moody's confirmed Labor's energy policy would cost up to $230 billion over the next 10 years and drive household and business electricity prices up another 25 per cent. This is yet another independent warning that the minister for energy's renewables-only approach will hurt Australians, forcing families and businesses to the wall. Labor's renewables-only approach is failing, and industry and small businesses continue to sound the alarm. If the Prime Minister and the energy minister won't listen to everyday Australians struggling with soaring energy prices, surely they will at least listen to the businesses, warning them that their plan is driving them to the wall.

Wholesale prices skyrocketed 83 per cent in the past year, with record highs in Queensland, proving that the 2022 pre-election energy modelling was complete and utter fantasy. The energy minister promised wholesale prices of $51 a megawatt hour in 2025, but the reality is Australians' quarterly prices have been more than $100 a megawatt hour in the last year. The Prime Minister and the energy minister promised Australians a $275 cut to their power bills, but instead families are paying up to $1,000 more under this costly and chaotic energy policy. Labor's ideological war on coal and gas has weakened the grid, and as a result Australians have been forced to rely on expensive, unreliable renewables without the necessary back-up power. Labor has no plan for affordability, no plan for reliability and no plan to keep the lights on, and Australian families are paying the price.

Furthermore, the government has little regard for the regional communities that are having to host these mass-scale renewable energy projects. In my electorate of Flynn, this is ground zero, and it is reckless energy policy, with dozens and dozens of these projects all over the Flynn electorate. The renewables-only dream that the Labor government and the Greens are pushing will not only fail to meet the needs of businesses but also cost Australians $263 billion more than the coalition's nuclear energy policy, while continuing to destroy our environment and agricultural communities that are carrying the weight of these unwanted projects.

The Gladstone community and heavy industry rely heavily on reliable, predictable and affordable power. The reality is that wind and solar cannot provide any reliability at all. It is not a 24-hour baseload solution. Wind does not always blow, nor does the sun always shine. Nuclear provides about 25 per cent of the world's electricity, and could easily support the manufacturing industry in Gladstone into the 22nd century, with an expected lifespan of some 80 years. You would have to replace solar panels and wind turbines at least four times over this same period. The waste problems and sheer footprint of these projects and transmission lines are already compounding this. (Time expired)