Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I'm already getting interjections, which I love, from Senator Watt! These are the facts. Electricity costs are now at their lowest level in eight years. In the last two years alone, energy costs for households are down eight per cent and costs for small businesses are down 10 per cent. Our reforms to cap the price of the highest cost electricity deals mean that a typical household can be up to $768 a year better off and a typical small business can be up to $3,000 a year better off. On top of this, an AEMC report released in November shows household electricity bills across the National Electricity Market will continue to fall by a further nearly six per cent on average over the next few years.

That's in stark contrast to when that lot were in government, where we saw 23 consecutive quarters of increases in electricity prices. What do we see now from those opposite? Labor are flip-flopping on the Kurri Kurri project in the Hunter, which will provide 600 direct construction jobs, 1,200 indirect jobs for the Hunter region, and now, after nearly a year of talking down jobs and investment in the Hunter, after nine of his frontbench colleagues opposed the project, the weak Leader of the Opposition, 'Each-Way' Albo, has backflipped on support for a new gas-fired power station in Kurri Kurri. What a conviction politician he is!