Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Rudolph Giuliani took American politics through the looking glass yesterday when he helpfully explained that truth is not truth. We seem to be approaching a similar point in energy policy today. It is a mess. It is an absolute mess. You could describe the situation as a farce, and I've done it in the past, but it's actually ceased to be funny. It is actually embarrassing, watching the Prime Minister sell out on climate change, an issue he was once prepared to cross the floor on. It's actually tragic. It is tragic watching the coalition sabotage, yet again, Australia's opportunity to take meaningful action on climate change, to establish a stable foundation for investment in the energy system and to finally start dealing with the underlying cause of the prices that people have been experiencing over the last five years. All of that has been put to one side.

Where are we now? Today the Prime Minister unveiled his fifth energy policy. Over the past few years, the Prime Minister has floated an emissions intensity scheme; a clean energy target; the National Energy Guarantee that the PM took to the party room last week after long discussions at COAG; then the NEG, the version announced on Saturday; and again, today, another version of the NEG. We are up to five energy policies in one term. The version announced today is apparently the government's policy—or is it? Well, it is until it isn't. It turns out that the Minister for Home Affairs had it correct when he described the NEG version 1.0 as the government's 'current' policy on radio last week. As Giuliani said, 'Truth isn't truth.' At least, it's not for this crowd.

The only consistency through all of this has been our commitment to taking meaningful action on climate change, to renewing our ageing energy infrastructure and to bringing those two things together. We have tried and tried to work in good faith with the government through their tortured and convoluted processes. We have tried to offer bipartisanship, despite the government's best efforts to sabotage that through indecision and division. Here we are; we are all here again. As of less than six hours ago, the government has a new energy policy. It's a bit like a newborn baby giraffe: it's a bit unsteady on its feet, it's a little bit clumsy and it's a little bit unworldly. Will it see out the day? Nobody knows. Nobody knows if this is the government's final policy. No-one can tell, least of all the Prime Minister. This process has revealed just how little power and respect he has in his own party.

Indeed, for all of the discussion of leadership today, it has become quite clear that the Prime Minister has not been leading his party for some time. The Prime Minister explained to the House of Representatives earlier today that the NEG had been improved following consultations with colleagues. What did those colleagues say about this respectful consultation process? Mr Christensen said:

We have a new energy policy thanks to a band of Liberal-National rebels who stood firm and fought for common sense.

He went on to say:

This is a victory for common sense, in that we take advantage of the abundant coal reserves this country still has, and we use that abundance to deal with this issue of power prices once and for all.

It sounds a lot more like extortion than consultation.

The Prime Minister can pretend that the changes to the NEG were made on the basis of policy, but we all know what it's actually about. It is about his inability to enjoy the confidence of his colleagues, whether in the party room or, amazingly, in the parliament. The Prime Minister confirmed during question time that he had legislation drafted and ready to go on the NEG. Why hasn't it been introduced? He explained in question time today:

The government will introduce the legislation when it has concluded that it has the support in the House of Representatives for it to be passed.

In other words, the government cannot be confident that the legislation will pass a chamber it supposedly controls. I suspect that the Prime Minister will find it difficult to get the necessary support for any compromise. Anything that he offers will be rejected, especially if it contains even the weakest commitment to dealing with climate change.

How can the Prime Minister have the authority to stand up for what he used to believe in when he is too busy, hour by hour, fighting for his own job? Even TheDaily Telegraph's afternoon email update was titled 'How long can Turnbull be PM?' There are reports that the president of the LNP, Mr Gary Spence, has been encouraging members of parliament to support the member for Dickson. Today, he dodged an opportunity to deny it. He said:

You are asking me to talk about private conversations with MPs. A party president has private conversations with Members of Parliament all the time. … I think everything that needs to be said has been said today. I haven't got anything further to add.

As for whether Mr Dutton would make a better Prime Minister, he went on to say:

Everybody has their own view. My view is my view. The MPs and Senators choose the leader.

Well, thanks very much! I'm sure that Mr Turnbull is extremely grateful for Mr Spence's insights into how the LNP works, but it's hardly a ringing endorsement. Even the member for Sturt, on the radio this morning, referred to the Prime Minister as 'the current leader'. It's embarrassing. Throughout all this the Prime Minister has been emphatic that he enjoys the support of the party room, but, again, I guess truth is no longer truth.

Would a spill fix things for the government—or for energy policy, for that matter? I don't think changing the leadership will bring about leadership. That is because this conflict is about much more than personalities. Part of it is personal, of course. There does seem to be an implacable rump in the Liberal party room that will hate everything that this Prime Minister does, and it doesn't take very much imagination to identify who they are. But it is a mistake to imagine that this is all of it. A large part of the Liberal party room will never agree to meaningful action on climate change because deep down they do not believe that it is real. It is a schism that can only be solved by the hard Right accepting the science and moving climate change out of the culture war basket into the policy basket. In so doing, you could move energy policy out of the culture war basket into the policy basket and you'd get a fix—the fix everybody wants you to find. But there is no indication that anyone on the other side of the chamber is willing to do this.

Energy policy now seems ready to join the elephants' graveyard of the government's failed policy ambition, and it is in very good company. School funding is beset by problems. Every sector is aggrieved at the way the minister has handled their concerns. It takes special genius for our coalition education minister to irritate the independent school sector, to irritate the Catholic school sector and to irritate the public school sector simultaneously, but that is what Minister Birmingham has achieved. Tax reform stalled in the Senate after years of talk—years and years of talk.

And, when the government isn't outflanking itself, it's basically outflanked by events. One of the biggest policy events of the year is, in fact, the banking royal commission, and its revelations have seized the headlines and have shown the inadequacies of the current policy settings. But this was not a policy actually supported, embraced, by this government. It was established by the government despite their own fervent objection to it. The Prime Minister even described it as 'unfortunate' at the press conference when he announced it. He only did so at the urging of the major banks, who had the wit to understand that the calls for intervention in their sector would only cease when a proper examination of the issues had been undertaken. The Prime Minister was the last one to see it and to understand it. One of the very few good things to happen in this parliament, one of the very few achievements, was done on sufferance, not on the initiative of the Prime Minister or the people around him.

This Prime Minister is like a ship in a storm. He is slowly sinking, and he's tossing policy ideas overboard to stay afloat. Like his famous namesake, his crew are mutinying, and he is no longer in any way in control of where this ship goes. But the great tragedy for everybody else is that we're all part of it. We can't get off the ship. This crew is taking us all with it. The only way we will restore sensible policy processes and overcome the paralysis is actually to vote this government out. That is the only conclusion any sane observer could reach after the events of this week and last week.