Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

That is depending on what day it is, Member for Parramatta. We know, of course, that it has been 40 per cent and it has been 50 per cent. They have no idea how they would do such a target. We need to introduce a spot price for the renewable energy target over there. We do not know what it is. We would have to look it up depending on the day of the week it was; how high they would do it. One thing we do know is that you would increase the renewable energy target in such dramatic ways that you would increase power prices for end users.

Contrast that approach with the Turnbull coalition government. We are taking action on gas. We are taking action on gas once again, following a decade of Labor, state and federal, who had recklessly run up the ability for people to export gas overseas. It is actually easier to export that gas than it is to supply our own domestic market. Today in question time, the member for McMahon, no matter what he likes to say, was yelling out 'sovereign risk' when the Prime Minister was talking about the gas supply. He might want to make a personal explanation and say, 'Oh, I meant some other sophisticated thing,' realising he had been badly embarrassed. He says that when the Turnbull government acts on gas, reserving domestic supply and ensuring that the price pressure on gas comes down, he describes it as sovereign risk. That is what he said. I heard him say it. He says, 'Oh, no, I didn't mean that; I meant something else.' But he was yelling out 'sovereign risk'.

This government removed the carbon tax and lowered the RET. It was the coalition government that proposed to lower the RET because there was no way that we could feasibly meet the RET at the target the Labor Party had left us with. Labor agreed, of course, to the reduction, even though their policy now says—variously, depending on what day it is—it will go up. You know that the Leader of the Opposition is being his most disingenuous when he comes into this House and says: 'I'm really worried about your power bill. I'm really worried about the price you're paying for power. I'm so concerned. It is this mob that's been in government.' Well, we know that the South Australian state Labor government is the cause of the blackouts that we have seen. The reckless pursuit of renewable energy at the expense of base-load generation has meant a disaster for the economy of South Australia.

We know that the Victorian Labor state government has said not that you cannot frack for gas—you cannot in various rural or regional areas; we do not want to do that on prime farmland; they have banned non-conventional gas and they have also banned conventional gas exploration. Why would you ban conventional gas exploration and, at the same time, build a port to import the very same gas into your state? We have more gas under Australia than Saudi Arabia has under oil, but we cannot supply our domestic market because of the decisions of Labor state governments. That is before we turn to the Queensland state Labor government and look at their ownership of the energy assets in Queensland. How much do they take out of those assets, those utilities, each year in dividends?

When the Labor Party comes in here with one of the highest renewable energy targets in the world, with a carbon tax at the highest rate in the world, all of the pressures that the state Labor governments have put on power prices, we know that the Leader of the Opposition is not genuine about your power price. He has no idea how to lower your power bill. Any policy that the Labor Party pursues will mean higher power prices for business and higher power prices for households. We will not be lectured by this man on power prices. It is a Turnbull coalition government that is acting to lower people's power prices. We are governing in the national interest. We are delivering to schools genuine national, needs based funding. We are tackling debt and deficit in this country, with no help from the Labor Party. Their approach will deliver a debt and deficit disaster. We will not be lectured by this kind of Labor Party that has no regard for the Australian people.

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