Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I want to use the magnificent Annotated Standing Orders of the Australian Senate, edited by Rosemary Laing—I offer my congratulations to her on this fine book—to seek, pursuant to standing order 191, to make an explanation of a material part of a speech that I made which has been misquoted or misunderstood. Yesterday in a debate I said:

We have heard that electricity costs for ordinary Australian households will go up anywhere between 50 per cent and 200 per cent, particularly 200 per cent when you add the renewable energy scheme to the CPRS.

This morning in a debate Senator Wong said:

Senator Macdonald … claimed yesterday that electricity prices would increase by 200 per cent. His approach, I think, reflects an unfortunate tendency in this debate: if you do not like something, do not worry about the facts; just use whatever fact or figure you want in order to try and scare people.

I want to draw the Senate’s attention to page 47 of a Senate committee Hansard of 28 April. Ms Savage, the Chief Executive Officer of the Energy Supply Association of Australia, a witness appearing before a Senate committee, said:

From that perspective our estimate is that retail prices—

of electricity—

would rise by somewhere between 40 and 50 per cent by 2020.

Senator BOSWELL—Yes; thank you. So the average house would pay 40 or 50 per cent more?

Ms Savage—Somewhere in that order, yes.

I also draw the Senate’s attention—