Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

'BRIEN () (): This week's budget has confirmed something that the Prime Minister has not had the courage to say himself—that is, the Labor Party has broken a promise, a very big promise. We know that the budget was in fact littered with promises being broken. But there's one particular promise I have in mind, and it comes with a number, and that number is 275. That's right. The $275 which was promised, promised by the Labor Party, by the Prime Minister, on no fewer than 97 occasions—a reduction in household power bills by $275. What we saw in this week's budget, in black and white, was that promise being broken. It's a promise broken because we now know that power prices are set to skyrocket—electricity prices by up to 56 per cent and gas prices by 44 per cent. This is, in black and white, confirming what the Prime Minister has been too weak to say here in this chamber, despite the number of questions we on the opposition benches have been asking him. This is a broken promise to the Australian people.

But what's interesting here is that we also have a very divided cabinet within the Albanese government when it comes to how to deal with this issue. There's complete disunity among the cabinet members. We have the Prime Minister of course blaming the coalition. We have the Treasurer blaming Vladimir Putin. We have the industry minister blaming the gas companies. We have the energy minister blaming everyone bar himself, even though he's the one presiding over this mess. But the one thing they are not even talking about is how to fix the problem. They're divided only on one thing—that is, who to blame for their own broken promise; who to blame for the increase in power prices. We know—

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