Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. It is reported today that the Business Council of Australia has said that if there is not a clean energy target, what is the alternative? They have said that if Australia continues to do nothing we will continue to pay higher prices and have a less secure electricity supply. Does the Prime Minister agree, and will the Prime Minister now commit to work with Labor in the national interest to end the policy paralysis which has led to higher electricity prices and instability in the energy market? (Time expired)

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And why do you think this country faces that?

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Goldstein will cease interjecting.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition's smirk gave the bipartisanship away very eloquently. When he stands up and invites us to bipartisanship, he is smirking away. He cannot even keep a straight face. He would be well advised to stay out of poker games, I think, with a face like that.

We have received a report from the Chief Scientist and his panel. We thank him and the panel for it and we are carefully considering it, but the fact of the matter is this: unlike the Labor Party, we are focused on ensuring that Australians have affordable and secure energy—electricity and gas—and that we meet our emissions reduction commitments. That is our commitment. That is our objective. The Labor Party, I hope, would agree with that, at least at a principle level, but what did they do about it? Everything they have done in government and everything they have said in opposition is calculated to make energy less affordable and less reliable.

We know at the moment we are facing a genuine crisis on the east coast of Australia due to the shortage of gas. That has driven gas prices up. It has threatened tens of thousands of jobs in the manufacturing industry—the jobs that the Leader of the Opposition claims to want to protect—and, of course, it has put very significant upward pressure on wholesale electricity prices. This has been caused by more gas being exported than can be done consistently with keeping the domestic market supplied—all done under the Labor Party. They knew. In 2012 in their energy paper it was stated expressly that the export deals from Queensland, which Labor approved, were going to put at risk the domestic market. In the previous year AEMO gave exactly the same warning about those deals, and so the Labor Party knew the risk they were taking when they licensed all those exports.

Now it falls to us in the coalition to take the tough decisions to fix it. By imposing the export controls that we foreshadowed, we have already seen a reduction in wholesale gas prices on the east coast. We have secured supply of gas for peaking power during the summer. We have done those things. We are taking the practical steps grounded in economics and engineering, not ideological, partisan and political slogans. We are doing the hard work—the grind of government—to get the job done and secure Australians energy and gas that is affordable and secure while meeting our emissions reduction commitments. (Time expired)