Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor's audacity and lack of self-awareness in opting to choose energy for the topic of today's policy discussion would be laughable but for energy's criticality to the wellbeing of our fellow Australians. Labor's energy policy is not about helping pensioners, helping low-income families, helping small business and helping our farmers to balance their budgets and pay their bills. Labor's energy policy is not about helping the young or the environment. Labor's energy policy is about appeasing its extreme Left, who worship at the Paris altar of impractical, counterproductive and job-destroying green ideology. Make no mistake: the Labor Party, led by Mr Bill Shorten, will deliver the Australian people an energy bill that will leave them short. In Labor's desperation to develop an energy policy, they crept into the Liberal Party room, rummaged through the Liberals' rubbish bin and are now hailing as their policy bits of our discarded policy. They claim that somehow that is innovative and worthy of support.

I welcome the Labor Party's commitment to recycling, because that is practical environmentalism, but can I say: recycling is not so good when it comes to policy. The policy was discarded for a reason: the cost to our fellow Australians—to our pensioners, low-income earners, small businesses and farmers. The Liberal policy in this space is clear: we commit ourselves to being good, very good, environmental stewards. And being good environmental stewards does not mean wrecking people's lives with carbon taxes and higher energy bills and breaking household budgets. Our policy puts price before Paris—an agreement which is now disavowed by or not impacting India, China and the United States, making up a very large proportion of the world's CO2 emissions. So, with a bit over one per cent of the world's emissions, through which we provide the hungry populations of the world with cheap and quality cereals, dairy and meat products, we have nothing of which to be ashamed and everything for which to be thankful.

As was experienced under Labor, Labor's high energy bills saw jobs and production flee to our near neighbours, who were using our coal to ensure that they had cheap energy prices. So, under Labor, we were reducing our emissions whilst others were increasing their emissions with our coal so they could manufacture things that used to be manufactured in Australia and have the privilege of then exporting them back into Australia—not good environmental policy for the world, not good social policy and not good economic policy.

On being elected, the Liberals abolished the carbon tax and restored economic confidence. Make no mistake: you can have all sorts of people talking about a lack of confidence in our economy, but there is one very good, independent indicator of economic confidence, and that is jobs growth. And have we delivered on that front—over one million jobs in less than five years. Tens of thousands of our fellow Australians are now benefiting from being fully engaged with the economy, which enables them to regain the dignity of self-reliance and the capacity to contribute to themselves, their family and their nation.

Labor's latest attempt to increase our energy bills and leave us short is to pursue a 50 per cent Renewable Energy Target—a target which will swing the wrecking ball through household budgets and the Australian economy. If you want to quote the Business Council of Australia, that is exactly what they have said about the Australian Labor Party policy, something that was missing from the previous speaker's commentary. As a nation, to date, we have sunk literally tens of billions of dollars into renewable energy whilst our energy bills have in fact gone sky high. This is Labor economics at its destructive worst. Talk about welfare for business: the renewable energy sector has been the greatest beneficiary of taxpayer subsidies and funding over years which have delivered higher energy costs to the detriment of our households, our pensioners, our small businesses, our farmers and, of course, our major manufacturers. Using taxpayers' money to subsidise an inefficient and unreliable energy supply so we can all then pay higher energy prices to boot, on top of those tax subsidies, is neither good economic sense nor, indeed, common sense.

If that isn't enough, Labor, not having learned from their pink batts debacle, now want a new pink battery debacle by offering a $2,000 taxpayer subsidy to those willing to buy a toxic battery. It's something the Greens and Labor never talk about: what happens when these batteries meet the end of their life cycle; what are we going to do with them? But, that aside, these batteries will be provided for people with solar panels on their roof—or, one assumes, also, potentially, for people with windmills. So just think about this: a battery that will cost, very conservatively, at least $8,000 to $10,000, under Labor will receive a $2,000 subsidy. How many pensioners will be able to afford the $6,000 to $8,000 shortfall? Not a single one. How many truck drivers, retail workers or nurses will be able to afford these expensive batteries? None; not a single one. But Labor's self-styled urban elites will be able to afford the difference and pocket the subsidy, whilst pensioners and low-income earners will pay even higher energy prices and more taxes through these subsidies. That is Labor social injustice—just another example of how Labor has lost its way.

Labor once actually championed the battlers, the pensioners and the low-income earners. Today they champion the green elites at the expense of the battlers, as is further witnessed by their iniquitous retiree tax grab which will only impact, yet again—you've guessed it—the low-income earners. But, if the retiree tax grab is not enough, Labor will increase the cost of living of low-income earners by their green-appeasing, household-budget-and-job-destroying energy policies on renewables and batteries.

There are four key planks to the Liberal policy. One is a price safety net to stop big power companies ripping off loyal customers. In fact, the Labor Party is wont to quote the Business Council of Australia—I don't actually hear the Business Council of Australia championing this Liberal policy of a price safety net to stop big power companies ripping off loyal customers. I wonder why. Possibly some of them may be members—I don't know—of the Business Council of Australia. Isn't it a stark situation when it is the Liberal Party supporting the pensioners and the low-income earners, and we have the Labor Party championing big business?

We will provide a safety net to stop big power companies ripping off customers, we will stop price gouging and dodgy practices—another key plank to our policy—and we will back investment in reliable power by underwriting new electricity generation to improve competition. We will support 24/7 reliable power by requiring energy companies to sign contracts guaranteeing enough energy to meet demand. We, on this side, will always put pensioners and price before the ideology of Paris.