Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Energy. Will the minister update the House on how the government is putting in place a national energy policy which will bring down prices and increase reliability for hardworking Australian households and businesses? And would different suggestions achieve the same success?

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

I thank the member for Wright for his question. He is committed to driving down power bills for Australian families in the electorate of Wright, across Queensland and across the country. Indeed, with his support today, and our colleagues, the National Energy Guarantee is one step closer, and it will help drive down Australian families' power bills by $550 and even more so for businesses.

It's time that the Leader of the Opposition stopped whispering sweet nothings into the ears of Australian families and got behind the policy which will deliver lower power prices for Australians. And that is the National Energy Guarantee. It's time the Leader of the Opposition got on the sticky paper and stopped trying to walk both sides of the street, because we know that when the Leader of the Opposition was part of the Labor government during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years power prices doubled. Power prices went up each and every year. We had the carbon tax; we had the citizens' assembly; we had the cash for clunkers. And we know that the member for Port Adelaide even wrote a book about it. He said, 'I know that we sent too many mixed signals, and we've made mistakes.' We welcome that honesty. But we also know that he thought that what happened in South Australia was merely a hiccup, a big experiment which saw South Australians get the highest prices in the country as a result of bad Labor management.

In contrast, the Turnbull government is delivering lower power prices. Last week the wholesale price of power was $68 a megawatt hour; the same time last year it was $101. From 1 July this year, power prices came down in Queensland, in South Australia and in New South Wales through the Prime Minister's intervention in the gas market. The ACCC has said that the reported price reductions are up to 50 per cent. This means more jobs for Australians. And now the National Energy Guarantee will deliver more jobs in the electorate of Wright and around the country. We heard from the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who represent 400,000 Queensland businesses, and they said:

At the end of the day, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) promises what we’ve all been waiting for—a downward pressure on electricity prices and policy certainty.

Across the board—from energy consumer groups to energy user groups, to the big manufacturers, to the big miners, to the farmers of this country, to the irrigators—they have got behind this policy. Now's the time for the Labor Party to get on the sticky paper and actually walk the talk and help deliver lower power prices for all Australian families and businesses.