Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, the government seems somewhat ignorant of these pressures, as was evidenced by that intervention, but people are struggling right now. What is worse, the government has no plan to help them—no plan at all. They promised us a year ago, at the election, that they would cut power prices. The now Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, promised 97 times that he would lower our power bills by $275 a year. They said that it would be cheaper under them, that life would be easier under them, and instead things have gotten much harder.

Not all of this is because of government actions, of course. There are global pressures here. There are issues around the Ukraine war. There are issues resulting from supply chain pressures post coronavirus. The problem is that the government's excuses here are wearing incredibly thin and have no more substance to them anymore. For example, the government continues to blame the war in Ukraine for our shocking loss of competitiveness on energy, even though global gas and oil prices are much lower today than they were when Vladimir Putin illegally and barbarically invaded Ukraine. They are much, much lower on a global level today than they were just over a year ago.

The reason our power prices are high in this country is not what is happening in Europe; it is decisions we are taking here in this country. We have abundant energy resources here. We don't need to rely on Russia, Germany, America or any other country for our energy needs. We have abundant energy. But instead the government has sat idly by while the Liddell coal-fired power station shut in New South Wales, a month ago, and others have shut, and we no longer have adequate power to provide ourselves with relief. The month after Liddell coal-fired power station shut, power prices in New South Wales went up by 70 per cent. We just do not have enough power right now. As we heard from the government today, all they can talk about is renewables. We don't have a shortage of renewable power. We've got plenty of solar and wind. In fact, we have been installing solar and wind at a rate that is four times higher per person than they have in North America and Europe, and that was under the former coalition government. There is plenty of that. Senator Wong mentioned, in one of her answers, that we have only installed one gigawatt of power in the last 10 years and we've removed four gigawatts. That doesn't include the renewables. Those figures she mentioned were baseload power. That is the coal-fired power stations and some gas. That's where that deficit has come from. Yes, Senator Wong is right. We are down by three gigawatts of reliable baseload power. But you're not going to be able to fill that gap with unreliable, weather-dependent energy. It doesn't work, and we're clearly showing how it doesn't work by having to pay more and more for power every time a bill arrives.

Australians are also suffering from interest rate pressures. Just since the election last year interest rates have gone up by 400 basis points. For the average mortgage in this country, that means people are paying $15,000 more a year. Again, there are reasons that interest rates have had to go up, to control inflation. I'm not blaming the government for everything there. But right now the fight against inflation is a one-man band. The only person taking any action against inflation right now is the Reserve Bank governor—who helped create this, I must say; he has a bit of the blame for all this. But he at least now is trying to fix it. This government is looking for excuses and doing nothing to help the Reserve Bank governor control inflation and get the cost of living down for Australians.

For example, in the budget they released last month, in May, this government increased government spending through policy decisions at a rate higher than in any budget since Rudd's government stimulus, except for those during COVID; obviously the COVID ones were different, having to respond to a pandemic. But for the last 15 years, in normal times, this was the biggest-spending budget ever. And we currently have an inflation fire going on. Why would you add $21 billion of spending to that inflation fire while people are struggling today? That's what the government did—$21 billion of new government spending decisions taken to add fuel to the fire, making the Reserve Bank governor's job harder. It is no wonder he has lifted interest rates twice again: one in the week before the budget—he knew what was coming—and one just this month as well. He has had to respond to the government's complete lack of control on their own spending. They've got to try and help Australian families here, to drop the excuses and come up with a plan to help people pay their bills.