Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Caesar judging Caesar; thanks to the interjection. I am talking about the actions of a previous Labor government as well as those of the current Liberal-National Party government: I am talking about actions that have been made across party lines. This is a market failure of grand proportions which the Commonwealth, if the states are not going to deal with it themselves, needs to start to address.

Before us on page 518 is the story, which I have heard of a lot lately, of the cat being belled. There is nearly $300 million in dividend increases from the new New South Wales government, which largely ran on a platform of fixing the problem. They have not, and there is now a moment in time where the Commonwealth seriously needs to consider what it is going to do about the National Electricity Market and what it is going to do about the greatest market failure in Australia today, which is sending cost-of-living pressures through the roof and causing a whole range of debates around carbon pricing that deny the reality of what is really going on in the electricity market today.

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