Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very happy to support the member for Wannon on this fine motion. I remember well, Deputy Speaker Georganas, as I'm sure you do and others here, the lead-up to the 2022 election when then leader of the opposition—now prime minister—very successfully won a mandate on electricity prices. It was a very important conversation that he brought into the national narrative, and I believe very much it was a change he did want to see. Australians were hurting, he was hearing it, his members were hearing it on the government benches at the time and we were hearing it. This was an important conversation. Electricity prices were rising and looked like they would rise for some time. We needed change on that front. When the Prime Minister went and said, 'I am going to reduce energy prices by $275,' on 97 occasions, this was not dipping his toe in the water of this subject; this was a prime minister seeking a mandate to drive down electricity prices in this country, and he won that mandate.

Sadly, what we've seen since then is a complete policy failure, where energy prices have not gone down by $275. In fact, they've gone up on average by more than $1,300 around the nation. This is a spectacular policy fail. In my heart, genuinely, I hope the Prime Minister can turn this around, because I have constituents like Tom, who owns the National Hotel in Toowoomba, who regularly reaches out to me. He has provided me with his most recent energy bill, once again showing that, over the last two years, the energy costs for him to run his hotel have doubled. This is a point that he describes as breaking point. These costs continue to rise. At one point in his career, he said, these were costs that you just absorbed and that you understood would be there. Now he makes key decisions on future investments on the basis of his electricity costs, they have risen so much. They are rising in businesses; they are rising in homes. And if we are all honest here, we are all hearing this. The electricity bill that arrives in your letterbox, in your email, those prices are going up, and Australians are feeling it and we're hurting.

I'm not the first to have raised this. I acknowledge other members in this place, including you, Deputy Speaker Sharkie, have talked about integrity as being a key part. I think the key step here is for the government to acknowledge that they have failed on the mandate they sought. They have not delivered cheaper energy prices. We are seeing that discussion now being realised around the country. Just last week, the AFRI'm going to quote them. They're talking about the recent inflation figures. They said: 'Other factors, including the sharp nine per cent jump in electricity prices, have played a part. This is partly due to the winding up of the energy rebate payments in three states, and now foreshadows the expected financial squeeze when the federal government's $150 cost-of-living power bill handout expires in December. Fundamentally, this reflects the structural reality that the renewable energy transition is expensive.'

That was in the AFR. So not only have the government failed during the last 3½ or four years, they have also set us up for further increases. We know that. We know that the minister has received a brief from his department saying exactly that. That's what is to be expected. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed structurally. Our power bills have gone up, and they will continue to go up—that is the trajectory that we find ourselves on.

I want to raise how this failure to manage our economy and the impact of electricity prices is spreading right across Australia. We see today a press release from the AMA. The press release is about—it's titled 'Bulk Billing changes miss the mark'. It's showing how the changes the government is proposing or making to bulk-billing will not affect bulk-billing rates. I'm going to read a quote from the press release, because it points out something very important to this debate. It says:

"We are … frustrated that Minister Butler has repeatedly boasted that GP appointments will be 'free' under the program and that patients will 'only need their Medicare card, not their credit card'.

"We have had many practices tell us that this is simply not true because the changes will not cover … staff, rent, electricity, consumables, insurance and other costs—

which are all going up. The rising costs of electricity are playing out across our economy. This is not just in small businesses or big businesses or home; now we're seeing the AMA talking about the impact that it's having on GPs as well. Everyone is feeling the rising pressure of these costs. The government should, first, own up that they have failed and then, second, lay out a clear plan on how they are going to drive down these costs. That is what they said they would do for the Australian people, and they have absolutely failed to do so.

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