Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

As everyone here understands—I think even those opposite understand it—we inherited an absolute mess in the energy system when we came into government. The average wholesale price when we came to government was $286 a megawatt hour. Retail prices had increased up to almost 20 per cent, which those opposite shamefully sought to hide, taking active steps to hide on the eve of an election. The truth is that a driver of that—a significant driver—was a lack of investment, caused by uncertainty driven by policy dysfunction, denial and chaos within the government of those opposite. Another driver, of course, was our exposure to international energy prices, international gas prices, which were going up as a consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So we are responding to that mess. We are responding to the mess that was left by those opposite. (Time expired)