Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The failure of the Albanese Government to secure affordable and reliable energy, as highlighted in Australian Energy Market Operator's 2023 Electricity Statement of Opportunities, which is resulting in Australians paying some of the most expensive energy bills in the world for increasingly unreliable power.

One of the great truisms of government, as well as of business, is that a failure to plan is a plan to fail, and that is exactly what the Albanese government has delivered for Australians. The Albanese Labor government promised Australian households—not once, not twice but 97 times—that it would reduce electricity prices by $275. Not only has the government broken this promise, broken its trust with Australians, but electricity prices are continuing to spiral out of control. It is not just in the home that we're seeing recent increases of around $500; now small businesses are also being hit with these terrific uncapped costs. Businesses tell me, as they would be telling members of this government, that they don't have a choice as to whether or not to pay rent, to pay for electricity, to pay for the insurance. So, what do they have to do? They have to cut wages costs. They have to cut the things they can manage. And that is bad for their business.

This is an extraordinarily bad business government, and it threatens the 30 per cent of people around this nation who are employed in small business. I have a been told that one in 10 Australians are already unable to pay their electricity bills, and it's going to get worse, because this is a dangerous pathway. It's dangerous for households, it's dangerous for business and it's dangerous for all Australians, given that we live in a nation of extraordinary resources. One of our great growth periods was when we tapped into our terrific coal and gas resources to have affordable—in fact, cheap—electricity. It allowed us to invest into manufacturing, into agricultural production, into mining. This is something Labor fails to understand.

In my recent 2½ weeks in Western Australia I saw project after project that has been crippled by a lack of energy supply. Whether they're trying to hook up renewable projects to transmission lines that don't exist or whether they're trying to negotiate the connection of new power sources, they are paying tens of millions of dollars—money that should be going to more employment in their business, to more contractors, to more small businesses for their local-buy content. Instead, it is being wasted on trying to secure what should be our greatest resource: affordable electricity.

There is no plan under Labor to transition to renewable energy—not in a way that is in any way affordable for Australians. I can see those on the other side laughing. Well, they're not paying the bills that mean that people are choosing whether to go ahead with their business, whether to keep people employed. 'Blackout Bowen', the minister from the other house, must be the most incompetent minister of his generation. His failure to manage the energy system, his failure to continue supplying the very affordable, reliable electricity that Australians were able to enjoy means that Labor's energy plan—Australia's baseload power—is shutting down faster than it can be replaced, increasing the risk of blackouts as soon as this summer. Do you know what that means? It means households and businesses are buying generators and filling them up with diesel in order to ensure that they have the basics that we expect for our lives—to be able to keep the fridge on, to be able to keep food safe, to be able to keep an air-conditioner on in a home or, if you have a medical condition, to be able to keep yourself plugged in.

This is an extraordinary situation from a government who should be taking responsibility for Australians but instead gives us this grand rhetoric. These renewable energy projects have instead been stalled. Australians are angry, and rightly so, because they are being sold out by this Labor government—sold out when there is no need for it.