Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Well, we know that the Labor Party—the party of blackouts and the party of a doubling of electricity prices the last time they were in office—have now sought to repeat the mistakes of their brethren in the Labor states of Victoria and South Australia. They seek to take this energy horror show national. That is what the Labor Party want to do with their 45 per cent emissions reduction target, which will cost the Australian economy billions of dollars in lost productivity, lost economic growth, job destruction and investment lost. That will be the legacy of that policy. Combine that with the reckless 50 per cent renewable energy target, which they said to the Australian people that they would legislate but that they are now seeking to walk away from. Also combine that with their policies to adopt, right across the board, emissions reduction without understanding its true consequence and impact on jobs, investment and growth.

On this side of the House we have been making positive inroads into the energy question. We have ensured that we are providing more domestic gas for users across the country. We've already seen announcements by Origin and Santos that more gas will be made available to the domestic market. We have also seen significant reforms that we've undertaken in the gas pipelines to ensure that there's more competition, more transparency and, ultimately, lower prices. And with transportation of gas being up to 15 per cent of the gas bill and the electricity bill, this can be quite a significant component of reducing power prices. We've taken action with the networks, the poles-and-wire companies that make up the 50 per cent of the household power bill. When Labor was in office, they saw a massive rise in the gold-plating of the networks but they did nothing. They stood still; they sat on their hands. It's the coalition who said we're going to abolish the limited merits review process and put through this House legislation which, now in the Senate, the Labor Party is seeking to push off to committee. Labor didn't do anything when they were in office to rein in the power of the network companies. Indeed, when they were in office we saw a regulator rate of return of around 10 per cent. That has fallen to just above six per cent today, which is worth hundreds of dollars to an Australian consumer.

We on this side have been doing work with the retailers. The retail component of the bill is significant. We've seen high margins, particularly in states like Victoria. We've asked the ACCC to look into that market and to look at the operations of the particular retailers around the country. But the concessions that we're able to win from the retailers are going to be very significant in getting lower prices because, again, the Labor Party did absolutely nothing.

The member for Bendigo has sold out the blue-collar workers in her electorate. The member for Bendigo has nothing to say about electricity prices. The member for Bendigo does nothing to improve the household power bills. If she did, she would speak out in favour of the Turnbull government's efforts to ensure that more information, better information, more transparent information is made available to households by their energy retailers. The fact that 50 per cent of Australian households have not changed retailers or contracts in the last five years despite benefits or gains or savings of more than $1,000 being available to them is quite significant. That is why we've taken action.

As the Prime Minister has indicated, a key part of the energy story, as we transition from more synchronous generation to less synchronous generation, as we move from a system where lots of people are on the grid to more people being off the grid, is having storage in place for wind and for solar in particular. The Labor Party didn't put in place any preparations for the necessary storage. Whether it's the pumped hydro schemes that you see around the country or indeed around the world, which are so vital in providing storage for renewable power, or battery storage, we saw nothing from those opposite. It's only the coalition that has put storage at the top of the policy agenda. And we've started to see big investments underway—whether it's through the Kidston pumped hydro facility that is being looked at in Queensland, whether it's the one in Cultana in South Australia or whether it's Snowy Hydro 2.0.

You have a premier in South Australia, Jay Weatherill, whose only energy policy is to spend $110 million on diesel generators, take more coal-fired power from Victoria and then also invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a gas-fired power generator. But then the big daddy of them all was to have a battery from a bit of Hollywood and a few doughnuts on sale. He thought a battery could solve—

See this speech in context