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

Thank you very much indeed, Senator Gallacher. I actually watched Kerry Schott's interview on Lateline, which you obviously did not. I'll tell you what she said, Senator Gallacher. Let me read to you from her transcript. She said:

The guarantee is about providing a reliable power system and meeting the emissions targets set in the Paris agreement.

What will happen when those mechanisms are put in place is that prices are likely to come down and they're likely to keep coming down.

That is what Dr Kerry Schott told Lateline last night. That is Dr Kerry Schott, the Chair of the Energy Security Board, who is in a better position than virtually any other authority in Australia to be able to make that prediction. What Dr Schott and the other members of the Energy Security Board, on whose advice the Turnbull government has acted—including Mr Pierce, the Chairman of the Australian Energy Market Commission; Audrey Zibelman, the CEO of AEMO; and Paula Conboy, the chair of AER—have all advised the government is that the most likely range of decrease in electricity prices will be in the range of $110 to $115 per annum as a result of the government's National Energy Guarantee. That doesn't, by the way, include the downward pressure on electricity prices from other measures that the Turnbull government has also taken, including, for example, its negotiation with the gas producers, its negotiations with the electricity retailers and its abolition of the limited merits review to prevent the operators gaming the system, all of which will have a downward impact on prices. (Time expired)