Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Is he the 'dispatchable' minister? I think not. But I can tell you what I cannot call him. He is not the 'base-load' minister. He's not the minister that's on 24 hours a day. He's not the minister that's providing affordable energy to the Australian people. He's not those things.

I would have absolutely no concern if our side of this House were brought to order for actually calling him 'competent' or saying that he was doing Australia a favour in his role. But he is not. He is occasional, he is irregular, he is intermittent and he is incompetent, and this side of the House should have every right to speak freely not on the part of the coalition but on the part of the Australian people—on the part of the senior citizens who will go to Christmas without knowing if they can feed themselves or heat their house. That's on whose behalf we speak. We speak on behalf of the small businesses who are closing their doors because this government cannot manage the electricity grid and because this minister is intermittent. That is the problem. Yet we are told that we are not allowed in this House to call him a 'part-time' minister.

What I think is revealing here is—do you know who jumped to his feet? Guess who jumped to his feet to complain? The intermittent one himself! 'Oh, dear! They called me something,' he said. It's not very presidential, is it? It's not very presidential of him. He's very proud of his role. He's already spoken publicly—he's spoken from the dispatch box—about how important he is and how much power he has. He doesn't deliver any power, but he's spoken about how much power he has. Now he's excited because it's about him. I don't know how many times we have had MPIs in this chamber while he's been the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, but he's never turned up—not once! He's as reliable as his energy system is! But, then, there's a new topic, the topic is him, and here he is! We now know how to get him. He's not part time when it's about him, is he?

See this speech in context