Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about the Turnbull government's latest policy on power prices. We—and, indeed, Australian voters—have waited a long time for this. I say 'latest' because we've had a series of policies, which have mostly gone backwards. Despite some in the government wanting to move forwards, we on this side know that the power in the Turnbull government rests with its extreme minority of right-wing members. It is they who are really running this government. They are mostly backbenchers, led by the former Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, who, as my colleague Senator Urquhart said yesterday, is a Prime Minister in everything except his salary. That is certainly what is observable to us on this side of the parliament.

What we saw yesterday, with the government's energy price announcement, was more of the same. It lacked detail because we know it's not really a policy; it's something that was developed on the run because Mr Turnbull is beholden to that small group of backbenchers and because he's more interested in saving his own job and the role of Prime Minister than genuinely delivering to Australians some relief on power prices and making sure that there is a supply that is steady and reliable, in consultation with the states.

We embarked upon an investigation by the Chief Scientist, who was tasked with undertaking a review. He produced the Finkel report. Given that the government commissioned that inquiry and commissioned the Chief Scientist to undertake the work, I think that not only the Labor Party, but the Australian community and, indeed, business had some expectation that the Finkel report would be implemented. But no. Fairly soon we started to hear those familiar rumblings of that tiny little rump of backbenchers and the speeches that the former Prime Minister, or shadow Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, started to make that we weren't going to get Finkel. So, despite a fair bit of media around the report when it was first out there and was completed, we soon started to hear silence from the so-called leaders of government, Mr Turnbull and his team of ministers, because we really knew that that little rump of backbenchers led by the shadow Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, was once again calling the shots, because the Prime Minister is certainly more wedded to saving his job, the job of Prime Minister, than he is to any serious reform or making the tough decisions required in relation to energy policy.

We've seen business calling out for certainty around energy policy. On the Labor side, we have committed and recommitted that we are prepared to work in a bipartisan way with government as long as it's not a joke—as long as there's some genuine meat on the bones of energy policy and as long as it is heading in the right direction. The sorts of things that Finkel said were mostly things that Labor could agree to. But yesterday we saw a brand-new policy. It isn't policy. I listened to Minister Frydenberg closely on the radio this morning. Yesterday there was this announcement that there were some savings in the policy—they're pretty meagre—but what Minister Frydenberg said on the radio this morning is that it 'could' lead to lower prices—not that it would but that it could. That's not something that you can call a policy. That was an idea cobbled together at the last minute that was agreed to in the Liberal party room yesterday because the Prime Minister knows he's got to put something on the table.

Further proof that it was cobbled together yesterday or the day before, perhaps late into the evening, came when we had Ms Bishop, the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, on radio yesterday and she couldn't explain anything about the policy. She just said she didn't know. She's a senior person in the government and a very experienced minister not just in the current government but in previous governments, but when she was asked some very basic questions she had no idea. She could have said, 'We've got a properly costed policy, but it needs to go to the party room.' She could have said, 'Yes, we've got the plans in place, but it's got to go to the party room.' We all accept that we have to take things to our party room, but she didn't say any of that. She could not answer basic questions.

We on the Labor side are very keen to put to bed this issue of energy prices to give certainty to Australian households who are struggling and to give some certainty to business, including those business leaders and industries who've been crying out and have come to Canberra on delegations to say to the Prime Minister, 'Let's settle energy policy in this country once and for all.' We thought it might happen yesterday. I have to say I was pretty sceptical, judging by what's happened to any other policy that's a little bit controversial in the government ranks. It gets taken by that little group of right-wingers, led by the shadow Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, and it just gets knocked on the head. That is indeed what happened yesterday. It is completely unacceptable for the Prime Minister to stand in the parliament, as he did yesterday, and make this new announcement about energy prices, to say that there will be savings to households, and then for the Minister for the Environment and Energy, Mr Frydenberg, to say this morning on radio not that it 'would' lead to a reduction in prices but that it 'could'.

Well, I think Australians are well and truly fed up with the empty promises of the Turnbull government, because nothing that they say can be taken for granted. My first thoughts yesterday went to the postal ballot that we are being forced to have at the moment over same-sex marriage. I now truly am very concerned about it. If a 'yes' vote comes back—and certainly that's what those of us on this side of the chamber and a number of others on the other side of the chamber have been working for—what will that right-wing group, mostly people who oppose same-sex marriage in this country, do once the 'yes' vote comes out? We've seen what they're prepared to do on energy policy, and it's not just energy policy. We've seen policy after policy get turned over, changed, because a little handful of government backbenchers don't like the outcome.

If we can't now settle this question of marriage equality in this country once and for all and recognise that love is love regardless of gender, I for one will not be silent about it. It will be, I think, the death knell of the Turnbull government if that's what that group of backbenchers choose to do to it or if—if the media is correct—they put together a bill that is completely unacceptable, a bill that those of us on this side of the parliament will be unable to support. Now, given this direction—it's not even a direction. Given this fluffy announcement about energy policy, I'm very concerned about how we deal with the question of marriage equality, which is, I would guess, much more strongly contested on the Liberal side of politics.

But, coming back to energy policy, there's no evidence base around this. It's not a policy; it's a thought bubble. Perhaps it is one that's been voted in by the Liberal party room, but it's not a policy, because a policy would be properly fleshed out. It would have some analysis around it. It would have some evidence based policymaking. And, given that it's really the states and territories who will make this decision, it would have the support of state and territory ministers. But, as I understand it, they haven't been consulted either. So again it's just a throwaway: 'Gosh, we've got to do something. We can't agree to Finkel because of this little rump of right-wingers in our party.' This is a Prime Minister desperate to save his own job. He's quite prepared to allow Australians to face much higher energy prices and to leave industry out. (Time expired)