Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Conservatives will be supporting this motion, but, because the word 'facilitate' means different things to different people, I'd like to clarify that our support is not built around the taxpayer rebuilding, or building or purchasing coal-fired power stations. It is for the government to get out of the way, to provide contractual and operational certainty and to get their bureaucracy out of the way to allow new entrants into the market that will make these determinations on a commercial basis. It has nothing to do with spending of billions of borrowed taxpayers' dollars in building new facilities. I want to put that on the record because I think it's critical that there's no misinterpretation about what the term 'facilitate' means from the Australian Conservatives' perspective.