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

I thank the member for Port Adelaide for his question. He comes from a state which has been run by a Labor government for nearly 16 years and has the highest prices and the least reliable energy system in the country. The member for Port Adelaide should know that in his own electorate Adelaide Brighton had to book a major loss as a result of the lights going out. That was in his own state and his own electorate.

The clean energy target was one of 50 recommendations from the Finkel review. We have said we will respond to the clean energy target as one of the recommendations. But we have also accepted 49 of the other recommendations, recommendations which will help deliver lower prices and a more reliable system. They include reforms like greater notice of closure, so large thermal generators like Hazelwood, or Northern in the minister's own state, cannot close with just a few months notice but with a minimum of three years notice; that intermittent sources of power, wind and solar, which Labor governments and the federal opposition have welcomed into the grid without the necessary back-up storage, will now be required to provide that storage; putting in place an energy security board to help implement the Finkel recommendations; importantly, developing our gas resources on a case-by-case basis using scientifically proven methods, not the blanket, mindless bans and moratoriums that the Labor Party has supported in many states and territories. If only the Labor government in the Northern Territory or Victoria developed their gas resources, people would have lower prices.

One thing we won't do on this side is we won't tell lies to the Australian people like the member for Port Adelaide did! Like the Leader of the Opposition did in the last sitting fortnight, when they came to the dispatch box and said that power prices have gone up by $1,000. You won't hear them repeat it anymore, because the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Commission, in correspondence tabled in this House, have directly contradicted the claims from the Labor Party. So stop making things up. Stop making bogus claims. I say to the Opposition: repeat it in this House, have the courage of Braveheart, walk up to the dispatch box and repeat your lies of the past. You won't, because you know that it's misleading the Australian people.

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