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

I have. And I mean no offence, Senator Di Natale, but that is just the way I pronounce the English language. I am sorry if my pronunciation is imperfect. In any event, Senator Di Natale, I can assure you that when the announcement is made you will discover that what has fallen from your lips in the last few minutes is completely wrong. And you will be ashamed, Senator Di Natale, when you learn on whose advice and guidance the policy measures about to be announced have been based.

Senator Di Natale, if I may address you and the Greens, we know the political game you have been playing—and if I may say so you've been playing it pretty well. You have got the Australian Labor Party on the run, because you are in a competition with them for the inner-city green hipster vote, and you are winning. You are taking the Labor Party to more and more extreme positions every day. It probably does the Greens a lot of good, but it is devastating for the Australian Labor Party. Unfortunately, it is also a recipe for bad policy. The ultimate victims of your political strategy, driven by ideology—and, as the Prime Minister unkindly said the other day, driven by idiocy—are the Australian people themselves.

We will be announcing a suite of measures the effect of which will be to reduce electricity prices and guarantee reliability of supply. I know, Senator Di Natale, you have a problem with that, but the Australian people don't have a problem with that, because that is what they want. They want their electricity prices reduced and the reliability of their supply guaranteed, and that is precisely what the effect of the measures the Prime Minister is shortly to announce will be. They are informed by science, informed by engineering and informed by economics, but avoiding like the plague the ideology that drives you. We are not interested in Green ideology, Senator Di Natale; we are interested in outcomes. That is what the Australian people are interested in too. So when the next election comes around in about 18 months or so, there will be a stark choice: the Green-Labor Party alliance, with higher electricity prices and insecure supply, or the government's policies, with lower prices and secure supply. (Time expired)