David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The gall of the member for Port Adelaide—to come into this place and want to talk about energy when he is the person who has admitted that the Labor Party knowingly allowed gas producers to export gas without providing for gas to be provided to the domestic market in a way that would keep prices under control—is extraordinary. When David Speers asked the member for Port Adelaide whether or not Labor received warnings when in government about the impact of their gas policy, which would enable the LNG suppliers to basically export pretty much all of the gas and not provide very much at all to Australia, he said yes—'Everyone knew there was going to be an impact on prices.' And yet the member for Port Adelaide, and all of his colleagues on the other side of the chamber, let that happen. What that has required is for this government to step in and go through the process of placing controls on the export of LNG, because all of the modelling says that the biggest factor that has been driving up wholesale prices of gas and, therefore, of electricity in the last twelve months is the excessive export of LNG. The member for Port Adelaide is the one who has admitted that the Labor Party was responsible for that, and that they were warned about that and they did it anyway. So it is quite extraordinary. You would think he would be so sheepish as to not want to draw attention to this extraordinary policy failure, but, nonetheless, he has.

The Labor Party's policies in this area have one consistent theme, and that is: higher prices. Not controlling LNG exports—what does that mean? Higher prices. A 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030, which will wreak havoc on baseload power in this country and force the mass closure of existing baseload power facilities—what does that mean? Higher prices. That's what the member for Port Adelaide and the Labor Party want—a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030. And they are so unashamed about this that, when they talk about coal-fired power stations, they don't talk about them closing down over time, as part of an orderly process; they say they want to 'kickstart' the closure of coal-fired power stations. What does that mean? That means a loss of jobs in those communities, like the Hunter in New South Wales, and again it means less supply and higher prices. That is the member for Port Adelaide's policy. A 45 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030? Again, that will mean less base-load power, and less base-load power means higher prices. We saw it with the Hazelwood closure. We've seen it with the excessive export of LNG. Their policy over there is to have more and more of that, which means higher and higher prices.

We've seen the practical reality—the canary in the coalmine, so to speak—in South Australia, where 1.7 million people were out of power because of the extraordinary and crazy renewable energy policies of the South Australian government. We saw prices up by 50 per cent for business customers after the closure of the Northern power station, and the member for Port Adelaide called that a 'hiccup'. Do you think that's a hiccup, Deputy Speaker Coulton? Well, if you are one of those small businesses in South Australia that are employing locals and your power price goes up by 50 per cent, that's not a hiccup—that's a disaster. All of these Labor policies mean higher prices.

In contrast, we have a clear agenda of reducing power prices: abolishing the limited merits review, so that the poles and wires companies can't game the system as they have in recent years, which has led to $6½ billion of additional costs for consumers; requiring the retailers to proactively get in touch with their customers to tell them about better deals and requiring the ACCC to follow up to ensure that the retailers actually do that, because people can save hundreds and hundreds of dollars just by working to get a better deal; and, importantly, moving to put in place export controls on gas, to fix up the mess created by the member for Port Adelaide and those opposite, which is already having a meaningful impact on reducing the wholesale price of gas that gets bid into the National Electricity Market. That is a very positive thing for reducing the pressure on household energy bills.

So, over there, you have a litany of previous failures and you have a series of new policies which will make things far, far worse. On this side of the House, you have practical steps being taken right now to reduce energy prices. Those opposite should be ashamed of their energy policies.

See this speech in context