Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my friend for the question. The budget brought down by the Treasurer on Tuesday night certainly provides that leadership for energy, with $20 billion in funding for Rewiring the Nation, $2 billion for powering the nation, a quarter of a billion for community batteries, funding for our regulators and operator to implement the better regulation of energy that's been agreed with state and territory energy ministers, and much more. This is all the leadership that we are providing after a decade of denial and delay.

As I said before, the government was also faced with a choice about being honest with the Australian people, including the pressures on energy prices in the budget—being very upfront and explicit about it in the budget—or taking the alternative approach, of not being honest with the Australian people. And that, we know, has a precedent, by the member for Hume, the former minister, who, on 8 April, signed into law a regulation to delay the release of the energy price rises until after the election. Now, I understand his reasons for doing so. I understand his sensitivity. There's been a lot of commentary about election promises and power prices. And, in the 2019 election, which was won by the coalition, the member for Hume promised a 25 per cent reduction in the average wholesale energy price. That was their promise in 2019. And the Deputy Leader of the Opposition says prices went down. Wholesale prices went up, 240 per cent. If the Leader of the Opposition thinks that 's a reduction, we've got a bigger problem than I thought we had. I thought we had a big problem with the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. But even closer to the election the then minister for energy was still at it. In November 2021 he promised a six per cent fall in energy prices by 2024. In November 2021—that's pretty close to the 2022 election. But of course by the time of the 2022 election wholesale prices were up 439 per cent: not down six but up 439 per cent. That is a 'missed it by that much' moment.

We know the minister hid the price rise. But the cover-up gets worse. Yesterday he was asked three times: 'Did you know this was going to happen?' Three times he said, 'No, I didn't'. He denies knowing there were energy price rises. The then minister, the member for Hume, wants the House and the Australian people to believe he signed a law change to hide a power price rise he didn't know about. He wants us to believe he didn't know that there was a price rise. So he went to all the trouble of asking his department to prepare the paperwork, sending it to the Governor-General, and he didn't know what he was doing. Did he do it with his eyes shut? Did the member for Cook do it instead? We'll add it to the dossier of dodgy documents the member for Hume is so famous for. I hope he's not working on the Leader of the Opposition's speech for tonight while he's being— (Time expired)

See this speech in context