John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison government's Economic Recovery Plan is protecting jobs and ensuring families and businesses have access to the affordable, reliable energy they rely on, and is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

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

I thank the member for Bennelong for his very good question and his steadfast focus on affordable, reliable energy. Businesses in his electorate, like Formula Chemicals that we visited not so long ago, are reliant on that affordable, reliable energy to invest and to employ, as are so many businesses around Australia—900,000 workers working in manufacturing across this country. Of course, our plan is working. We're seeing wholesale prices substantially lower than they were when we came into government, when we saw Labour's carbon tax and we had to abolish it. We've seen an 11.2 per cent reduction in retail energy prices just in the last year alone, and we need to keep putting downward pressure on those prices, and that means more supply into the market place. Particularly as we lose coal fired generators, as we're going to do with Liddell in April 2023, there'll be 660 megawatts of new capacity at Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley. No-one understands this better than the customers; it's always the customers. Matt Howell, the CEO of Tomago Aluminium, the biggest customer for electricity in Australia—960 megawatts—has said that this extra supply is absolutely essential.

We saw exactly why last week. We saw an unexpected outage at one of the four units at Liddell—only one of the four—and solar and wind came off in the evening, and Tomago had to stop manufacturing to keep the lights on. Matt Howell, himself, said the lights and heaters stayed on in Sydney because Tomago Aluminium came off. If it comes off for more than three hours, it never goes on again and the thousand workers there will lose their jobs, so the case for this is clear. The member for Hunter understands this. The member for Paterson understands this. Sadly, the member for Shortland doesn't. The AWU understands this.

I was asked about alternatives, and the alternative is the Leader of the Opposition and the member for McMahon. The two of them are dragging Labor away from the workers they used to represent, and the CFMMEU has said that their position on the Hunter power project is absolutely disgraceful. It's not often I agree with the CFMMEU. It's not often, but I do on this one, because the Left-Right power deal, which was supposed to happen when the member for Hindmarsh was sacked and the member for McMahon took over, is gone, and we now have what his colleagues call him, 'Mark Butler 2.0', over there. What an insult! No wonder the blue collar workers are walking away from him! (Time expired)

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

The minister will refer to members by their correct title.