George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Another stunt from the Greens, with all of this confected outrage from Senator Di Natale, pretending to be the friend of working Australians—this wealthy medical practitioner who lives in inner-city Melbourne and retreats to his hobby farm for the weekend, with every gesture, every posture of a left-wing hipster, pretending to be a champion of working Australians. Well, Senator Di Natale, I'll tell you what working Australians want. They want affordable energy electricity prices and they want reliable supply. That's what they want. And there is only one political party represented in this parliament that will give it to them—and that is the government parties of the Liberal Party and the National Party.

Senator Di Natale, you spoke about an announcement. There has been no announcement. So your entire speech is based on press speculation that you have, no doubt, tried to trick up into a speech. However, I can tell you, Senator Di Natale, having come from the government party room a short while ago where this matter was discussed, that I am expecting the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Environment and Energy, Mr Frydenberg, to be making some announcements in the coming hour or so. When those announcements are made, contrary, Senator Di Natale, to what you have just so foolishly asserted, you will learn that the announcements the government is making—which, out of courtesy to the Prime Minister, I will not be anticipating in these remarks—are informed by science, are informed by engineering and, more particularly, are informed by the most experienced experts in the field. But, as I say, out of courtesy to the Prime Minister and Mr Frydenberg, I won't be anticipating in this speech anything that they may shortly be about to say. What I can also tell you, Senator Di Natale, is that when the announcement is made—