Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm not protesting! Thank you for letting me know. I will continue on, then, about the small-business insolvencies, because this is very close to my heart. In the electorate of Swan in Western Australia, where my office is based, I meet with small businesses every day and I hear the stories of those small businesses. I met with one last week who'd seen their electricity bill basically double over the period of this Labor government.

The Labor Premier, who's also facing an election campaign in Western Australia at the moment—the writs were issued today—really belled the cat for the Labor Party and their energy policy when he said that blackouts were part and parcel of Labor's energy plan. 'Part and parcel' was his exact phrase.

Small businesses are seeing their energy prices skyrocket—in some cases, almost double—under the Labor government, yet they can't even expect to get supply, because blackouts, as revealed by the Labor Premier of Western Australia, are part and parcel of the Labor energy plan. How does the Labor government in here answer these important questions? They answer these important questions by attacking Peter Dutton. That's all they've got. They spend more than half of every answer attacking Peter Dutton. They don't defend their own record, because they've got no record to defend. All they can do is go on the political attack, and the Australian people are waking up to this failure of a Labor government.

Question agreed to.