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

Again, I thank the honourable member for his question. Power prices are a very important issue and a real issue of substance, and that's why I and this government have been focused on them—and we'll continue to be every day. That's why we'll continue with modernising our energy system and dealing with 10 years of denial and neglect.

We saw four gigawatts of dispatchable power leave the grid and one gigawatt come on. That's a three-gigawatt gap, and that supply gap has led to increased prices. When you have more supply leave than what comes on, that actually puts upward pressure on prices. We have seen five gigawatts of solar, wind, gas and batteries come on in the last year, which is a record since the national energy market was created. That is because of our policies to encourage more energy, especially more renewable energy, backed by gas peaking and backed by storage.

What I would say to that small business and the many other fine small businesses around Australia is that we know there is so much more to do—

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