Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

After that display during the last answer in question time by the Prime Minister, it is my sad authority to inform the Australian people that the transformation is complete: the member for Wentworth has now become the member for Warringah. Two years ago today, when question time finished, the member for Wentworth followed the member for Warringah out of the door, ready to seize the destiny denied to him by his predecessor. He followed him out the door, but what none of us realised when we watched him follow him out the door was that the member for Wentworth would follow the member for Warringah on every other issue from then onwards.

We have a weak Prime Minister. That is at the heart of the government's dysfunction—a Prime Minister who leads a government united by only one thing: their hatred of Labor, their dislike of the opposition and their dislike of unions. If you take that issue away, there is nothing left of this government. This is a government that can agree on nothing amongst themselves. I could talk today about the costly marriage equality survey—because they couldn't agree—and I could talk today about climate change. But nowhere is the dysfunction and the disunity of this government more on display than with energy prices.

I don't know if government MPs will go to the airport tonight and return to their electorates satisfied with their performance over the past two weeks. I can assure them that, whatever they think, Australians are not satisfied with the state of politics in this country. In the last two weeks, in energy policy in particular, we have seen why Australians are growing to hate politics in Australia. We see a disunity crippling the nation, crippling decision-making, and, most importantly for this parliament, crippling the trust that Australians have in our system. And we see a Prime Minister, who so desperately wanted the job, but, ever since getting the job, all he's wanted to do is hang on to the job and sacrifice every principle he ever stood for.

Two years ago the Prime Minister said to the people of Australia, 'There must be an end to policy on the run and captain's calls.' So the Prime Minister asked the Chief Scientist, who he personally appointed, to prepare a report. The Chief Scientist did the work and when the report came out the Prime Minister's initial reaction about the Clean Energy Target was, 'It has a lot of merit. We will look upon it favourably.' But one comment from the member for Warringah and all we have smelt is the burning rubber of the reversing tyres of the Prime Minister's car. How can it be that the Prime Minister asks the smartest person in the room to do the homework on energy prices, and then he gives to it the dumbest people in the room to mark the homework?

What world do they live in, this government of out-of-touch, unfair MPs? We had the energy minister—what an extraordinary spectacle—standing in parliament and essentially telling the Australian people, 'You've never had it better off when it comes to electricity prices.' It is now apparently the position of the government that, whenever the coalition's in charge, they are putting prices down but, whenever Labor is in charge, that isn't happening. The issue is that the energy minister has said that Australian families and businesses are paying nearly $500 less than they were four years ago. What parallel universe does the Turnbull government live in? The Australian people do not need an out-of-touch energy minister or Prime Minister telling them their power bills are going up. They see the proof every time they open them up. I thought it was a parallel universe in today's question time, as must the Australian people—those who still listen to question time. They must have wondered what on earth the Prime Minister was saying when somehow he said things are getting better. No, Prime Minister, on energy, things are getting worse.

Business knows the facts and individuals and families know the fact. Facts are stubborn things. Wholesale electricity prices have doubled under this government. New South Wales residents have been hit with power price increases of up to 20 per cent alone this year. CSR industrial company reported a 17 per cent increase in the cost of energy. Their bill will exceed $100 million—fact. BlueScope are increasing their energy bill, what they pay, by 75 per cent between 2016 and 2018—fact. And, if the Prime Minister doesn't believe any of that, he should take a day trip from Point Piper out to Parramatta and see how many people clap him on the back and say: 'Well done, old chap! Thank you for raising my electricity prices.' In fact, the Prime Minister should have a postal survey and find out what Australians think about electricity prices and gas prices. He loves the internet; he invented it. He should go on Facebook and see how many people press 'like' when asked whether their prices have gone up. I promise you I know what the result would be.

But instead of getting on with legislating a clean energy target, instead of pulling the trigger on the gas, instead of taking action, all we have seen from this government is schoolyard insults. And whatever happens, the human blame factory, which is now the coalition government, blames everyone else. It blames the states; it blames Labor; it blames previous administrations; it blames future administrations. It blames everybody. It blames the companies; it blames the unions. There is no-one in this country that this government hasn't blamed, except itself.

The fact of the matter is that the climate change and energy price political wars which have dogged this nation from 2007 have got manifestly worse since the coalition was elected in 2013. Anyone who knows anything about gas and energy prices knows that the problem in Australia is a lack of policy certainty. But the problem is that this Prime Minister is so weak that he can't follow the science, the evidence and the facts. Instead, he is tormented by his own bullies, those on the backbench, who insist that we must not change; we must not look at more renewable energy; we must not look at how we have a clean energy target. It is a sorry hallmark. And we see it in the Prime Minister's demeanour. Sure, he gets the odd juice, an energy bolt—he has a bit of Red Bull before he comes into parliament, and he turns red. But the normal and increasingly familiar demeanour of the Prime Minister is of a Prime Minister visibly shrinking and ageing in the job. This is not the job he thought it would be. This is not the job he signed up for. There are all these irritating facts. There is this opposition which doesn't immediately bow down in front of him. His backbench won't do as he says. And the world keeps changing. But of course his motto is: 'There go my people. I must follow them. I am their leader.'

This is a weak Prime Minister. The only thing this out-of-touch Prime Minister can do is tell people what isn't true. The truth is that power prices are going up. It was an unusual competition today to show who was more out of touch. We had the colt from Kooyong and the show pony from Point Piper. And the poor old Minister for the Environment and Energy, feeling a little emboldened, decided to trail his coat. Indeed, he was shredded by the member for Port Adelaide today. In the end, the leader of the government in the House of Reps had to gag their own motion. Mind you, to be fair to that proud son, the inheritor of the Menzian spirit in Kooyong—he loves to finish on a self-proclaimed quote—I'll give him points for this one. At the very end that proud son of Menzies stared valiantly across the dispatch box and declared, 'I end where I finish.' If only he could bring that compelling, laser-like logic to his portfolio!

But the real problem here is that we will have a four-week break from parliament when it rises today, and Australian families and businesses are rightly frustrated that we are no closer to any action on the energy crisis. The weakness of the Prime Minister masks the bigger problems: rising prices, lack of investment, shortages in power and increasing carbon pollution. Now, there's a mix of causes: privatisation and price gouging, gas supply, a dysfunctional national energy market and four years plus of doing nothing. This feasibility study of the Snowy—fair enough, but it won't generate an extra watt of power now; in fact, when it's done it won't generate an extra watt of power. Talking to the companies, getting them to redo their marketing strategy and send letters, doesn't generate any extra power. Australia needs a plan now.

Labor is prepared to offer Australians, in the spirit of compromise, a plan. This is what we want Australians to hear. We should pull the gas export trigger now. We should end the war on renewables, and we should have a clean energy target to help keep prices down.

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