Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Petrie for his question and for the hard work that he and all members on this side of the House are doing to ensure the government is putting downward pressure on electricity prices for their constituents, and for their passion and commitment to get the right deals for the consumers in their electorates. I know the member for Petrie would agree with the chairman of the ACCC, who said today, 'If you want to get cheaper electricity, then you've got to focus on what's caused electricity to become more expensive.' That was the message from the chairman of the ACCC today, and that is what I asked him to investigate back in April as part of the government's broader package of measures which is designed to put downward pressure on rising electricity prices. The commissioner has come back today with his draft report to get those facts. He has prised open the books of the electricity and energy companies, as he was empowered to do, and he's come back with some facts. He has commended the government on the action we've been taking to get this job done. The first finding, amongst many, is he has concluded that Labor's carbon tax drove up prices and, as a government, we were right to get rid of it. He concluded that Renewable Energy Targets are about subsidising investment in renewable energy to create a renewables industry with scale, not about bringing down prices, and he found they hadn't; in fact, they'd been pushing prices up. The customers have been paying for that, as he said, smearing costs right across the spectrum.

Labor wants a bigger Renewable Energy Target. They're not satisfied with the price increases that are being driven by the current one; they want one of up to 50 per cent, just like they want an emissions reduction target of 45 per cent that would require you to wipe out the emissions of the entire electricity industry. That is the plan of the Leader of the Opposition to drive up electricity bills. He's also found that, when you blow up coal-fired power stations, which the Labor Party cheered on, it pushes up prices, particularly when you have no plan to replace it with dispatchable base load power like this government has when it comes to Snowy 2.0. Blowing up coal-fired power stations with no plan is no plan at all, as we saw in South Australia. They also found that the big poles and wires companies, while state Labor governments stripped dividends off them and allowed them to gold-plate their infrastructure, drove up prices more than anything else. We have kicked out of the park this free kick that was provided to those companies, public and private, to do that. As the Prime Minister remarked, it has already passed in the Senate today. He found that the power retailers had been not treating their loyal customers well and had been mystifying their customers. The deal we put together with the electricity retailers was about ensuring those customers got a better deal, sitting down, getting the deal done, as we did with gas, delivering on our plan. (Time expired)

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