Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, I think that is right, Senator Farrell—as he reflects on whether he can survive until Christmas: clinging to power, pleasing neither conservatives nor small 'l' Liberals, only occasionally winning favour among a diminishing number of scribes.

But of course what the people of Australia want is a Prime Minister who will reserve the best efforts of his care and attention to the people's business. And self-evidently vital to the welfare of the people of Australia, to jobs, is ensuring certainty into energy policy. Despite their weasel words, the Abbott-Turnbull government, perhaps soon to be the Dutton-Abbott government, have presided over great uncertainty and are in control of what is really best described as an energy crisis in Australia. Wholesale power prices have doubled in their four agonisingly incompetent years in office. And you do not have to be a Belgian detective to figure out that if wholesale electricity prices go up, retail prices will surely follow.

This building, this vast beautiful building constructed inside a hill, cost more than $1.1 billion to build in 1988 dollars. The representatives and senators who sit here cost the taxpayers around $500 million a year, every year. The taxpayers pay us to make decisions, to make the big calls that affect the future of the country. And yet this government, on so many issues, has shown itself incapable of making decisions. Those 20-plus coalition MPs know that indecision is killing their government. Who else knows this basic truth? Pretty much everyone else in Australia: peak industry groups, unions, welfare groups, farmers. Its policy paralysis on energy policy, a paralysis caused by a genuine confusion in the Liberal party room about whether they believe in climate change at all, is led by someone who actually does believe in climate change—but, of course, he is not really leading them. He is their Prime Minister in name only. The Energy Council has contributed soaring electricity prices to the government's inability to do its job to determine a coherent, consistent energy policy.

The Finkel report into the future security of the National Electricity Market is an important contribution to the debate about the right policy mix for energy policy in Australia. The issues it addresses are complex, but there is no doubt that the Australian Labor Party will always be focused on protecting and encouraging the creation of jobs in Australia. There is a straight line between cheaper, cleaner and more secure power and jobs. Labor will never indulge in the ideological zealotry of those who do not care about climate or those so rich—often so green—that they do not have to care about jobs. For Labor, our mission is clear and always has been: jobs, jobs, jobs. Under the Abbott-Turnbull-Dutton-Abbott-again government, there has been a crisis of indecision and incompetence on energy policy—a party room of climate sceptics notionally led by somebody who would probably be pedalling renewable schemes for Goldman Sachs if he was not the Prime Minister.

We are here to make decisions, the tough calls to govern and to lead. My message to the Liberals, to the Nationals in this ramshackle hopeless government on energy policy is that if you cannot lead and will not follow then please, for the sake of Australians and their jobs— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.