Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry: Will the minister update the House on the government's commitment to guarantee an affordable and reliable energy supply and on why this is so critical to the delivery of the national defence industry project? And, Minister, what are the risks of taking an alternative approach?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the interest of the member for Fairfax in the national defence industry project, the same interest that the member for Boothby, who asked me a question yesterday about the defence industry, has. I didn't get quite the opportunity that I had anticipated to answer it. So, this answer is for both the member for Fairfax and the member for Boothby. They, like all members on this side of the House, recognise the transformational nature of the industrial base of Australia because of the Turnbull government's commitment to the national defence industry project, driving billions and billions of dollars in investment, thousands and thousands of jobs right across Australia. Just last week, in fact, we announced 600 new jobs in construction at the Osborne shipyards and 150 new jobs in combat management systems at Saab Australia because of this government. That's just the tip of the iceberg—future frigates; offshore patrol vessels; the Joint Strike Fighter, which has a big impact in states like Queensland; surface-to-air missile defence systems; and satellite ground systems. Right across defence and defence industry we are driving the economy.

But one of the things all these projects have in common is that they need reliable and affordable power, and that is what the National Energy Guarantee provides. It means more capacity in the system, more supply—driving down the price, working with the other elements of the government's energy policy that are also driving down the price and driving up reliability. Who could be against a policy that ensures reliability and drives down the price of energy? No sensible person would, and that's why, as the Minister for the Environment and Energy pointed out, there have been so many third-party endorsements of this policy in the last 24 hours. Well, there are two people who are against it. There's the Leader of the Opposition, who's like the dog that caught the car on this policy. He's been demanding a policy on energy that would drive down prices and reliability, and now that he's caught it he doesn't quite know what to do with it, and he's leading the Labor Party into a very bad policy position, because he's like the dog that caught the proverbial. The other person is the Premier of South Australia, who just wants to pick a fight with Canberra. He's not the least bit interested in affordability or reliability. He's the one who's given us the canary in the coalmine that is South Australia. We've seen what Labor's policy does: it means blackouts and it means unaffordable power. Jay Weatherill wants to continue that, and so does the other side of the House. They want to put $66 billion of subsidies into something they have already decided is competitive with coal and gas. Get on board. (Time expired)