Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware that the finance minister told Fran Kelly that 'the price of electricity has been going up in recent times; it's projected to continue to go up and up and up if we do nothing'? Also, he said, 'We need to embrace this blueprint that is being put forward by Dr Finkel.' Does the Prime Minister agree that if the energy policy paralysis continues then power prices will continue to go up and up and up under this government?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Port Adelaide should know better, because he comes from the state of South Australia, where electricity prices have gone up and up and up. Even in his own electorate, Adelaide Brighton—they employ 450 people—had a blackout for 36 hours. Did you hear an apology from the member for Port Adelaide? No. Did you hear an apology to the 450 workers in your own electorate?

The reality is: when Labor was last in office electricity prices more than doubled. Right now, as the Prime Minister has acknowledged, the wholesale price is going up, and the wholesale price is going up particularly because we are now exporting two-thirds of what we produce, and states like Victoria are sitting on 40 years worth of domestic gas reserves. And your friends in the Labor government in the Northern Territory, who have restrictions on unconventional gas extraction, are sitting on 180 years worth of gas reserves.

So I say to the member for Port Adelaide: we are all in favour of affordable, reliable energy, but to do that you need to drop your reckless 45 per cent emissions reduction targets, which the Business Council calls risky and unnecessary; you should not pursue your ideological approach to energy policy; and you should come on board with important bipartisan initiatives like carbon capture and storage.

This is what the member for McMahon said:

Carbon capture and storage projects are already occurring throughout the world.

This is what the member for Corio said:

… carbon capture and storage … is a critically important technology.

And this is what Senator Penny Wong said:

I'm on record as supporting CCS.

So you can imagine how surprised we were to see a press release last night, under the cover of everything else, from the member for Port Adelaide saying they would not support our amendments to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in order to support carbon capture and storage.

We are all in favour of lower electricity prices and a more stable system, and you are much more likely to get that under Malcolm Turnbull and his government than through Labor's ideological pursuits.