Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Will the minister update the House on action the government is taking to protect small businesses from the impact of unreliable energy supply? What hurdles stand in the way of achieving energy security for hardworking Australian small businesses?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Capricornia for her question. It is a good one. The member for Capricornia is a passionate advocate for the almost 13½ thousand small and medium businesses in her electorate and, like all of us on this side of the House, the member knows how vital reliable and affordable power is for small businesses to grow and to create jobs. I was in Yeppoon in the member's electorate just the other day and we met many small businesses doing what small businesses do best—that is, growing their enterprise and creating jobs. Across the member's electorate, each and every small business is doing the same: taking a risk and having a go each and every day. But they simply cannot keep up with high energy prices and unreliable sources.

In Rockhampton, Dobinsons Spring and Suspension's power costs have tripled in a decade. Solar installation has helped, but it is no use for early-morning furnace operations. They cannot afford the cost of solar storage, which would be about $2 million, and they are considering diesel. In the Pioneer Valley, in the member's electorate, a sugarcane grower says the electricity required to pump water was costing $9 a tonne and they too are considering diesel. These are stories echoed in small businesses throughout Central Queensland and across the country. They are the small businesses who know an ideological approach to energy simply does not work. I hear from small businesses everywhere, such as a financial planner at GEM Capital in Adelaide, in the member for Boothby's electorate, who told me about his backup diesel generator due to inconsistent supply. You cannot grow your business if the power does not switch on, you cannot create a job if you cannot afford the energy and you cannot invest in your future if you do not know what the next quarter's power bill is going to look like.

So this government is taking action. Our priorities are the small businesses and the people who pay the bills at home. We are focused on energy reliability and energy affordability. We know the blackouts in Australia were not a hiccup, as the member for Port Adelaide called them; they were a wake-up call. We have directed the ACCC to review retail electricity prices to ensure consumers benefit from competition in the National Electricity Market. We are securing domestic supply of gas and ensuring the domestic market has the gas it needs to help keep prices down. And we are Turnbull-charging—sorry, that should be turbocharging—the Snowy Hydro, just near my Riverina electorate, to increase its capacity to create jobs and to bring confidence and affordability to a sector which is desperately in need—economics and engineering, as the turbocharger himself, the Prime Minister, said just a few moments ago. While we work responsibly to secure Australian supply and keep prices as low as possible, those opposite stay stuck to a reckless and ideological approach. A renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030 will increase prices and instability in the market, yet those opposite just cheer it home. The forced closure of coal fired power plants creates even more instability and leaves Australians without a job, and those opposite just cheer it home. (Time expired)