Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is again addressed to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that the absence of an energy policy is leaving people with higher electricity bills to the point where in a suburb like Corio one in 10 people have had their electricity cut off?

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

The Leader of the Opposition knows the rules about props.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this poverty week, will the Prime Minister agree to have a debate on Australia's economy today?

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Of course, it was the coalition who updated hardship policies, made them uniform and ensured that those hardship policies were in place to ensure the most vulnerable in our community were getting a fair deal! That's just the beginning of what we've done to make sure that vulnerable Australians are getting a fair deal on energy. We saw at the beginning of July the default market offer was put in place. This is a cap on electricity prices, which affects, most of all, the most vulnerable Australians right across the National Electricity Market across the country. On top of that, we've put in place the reference price, which ensures that customers find it easier to make choices, comparable choices—

Mr Marles interjecting—

Dr Aly interjecting—

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

The member for Corio and the member for Cowan.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

apples for apples choices, so when they get offers coming from the various energy companies, those offers are absolutely comparable.

On top of that, we are bringing more supply into the marketplace. We are seeing that with the Snowy 2.0 project—2,000 megawatts of capacity with 175 hours of storage. The cost of that storage is one-fiftieth of the cost of batteries. Indeed, if you were to build batteries the equivalent of what we're doing with Snowy 2.0, it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars! So what that project is doing is reducing volatility in the market and putting downward pressure on wholesale electricity prices.

But we're unified on energy and climate policy on this side of the House. We're unified. The contrast over there is the member for Hindmarsh has asked for a ruthless and unsparing review of their energy and climate policies. Well, he got that review from the member for Hunter! He got that from the member for Hunter, but he didn't want it to be that ruthless and unsparing, because the member for Hunter went with our policies.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Come on over!

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Come on over, member for Hunter. Great call! The member for Hindmarsh refused to endorse it, even though he admits he had his backside delivered to him at the last election. He admitted it himself. Only this side of the parliament, only this side of the House, is for a fair deal on energy.