House debates Questions without Notice

Energy

Tuesday, 2 August 2022 House of Representatives

Peter Dutton

Peter Dutton Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition

2:03 pm

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, your website currently states a Labor government will cut power bills for families and businesses by $275 a year. Is this still your policy?

Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister

I could just refer to my answer of yesterday but that wouldn't be as much fun as going through what our policy is because our policy is very clear. Our Powering Australia plan is indeed up on the website. And something that might be unfamiliar to those opposite is the concept of putting out an energy policy that you are going to actually implement, because those opposite had 22 energy policies and didn't implement any of them.

The other thing that might be confusing for those opposite is the concept of putting out a policy that's fully costed and that has detailed economic analysis, in this case by RepuTex, Australia's leading energy economists. And what Australia's leading energy economists said is that if you embrace the changes that we're advancing—including fixing transmission through our Rewiring the Nation plan, making sure we bring the electricity grid into the 21st century—if you have a policy that upgrades—

Peter Dutton

Peter Dutton Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition

A point of order—

Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister

Well, if you're not interested—

Milton Dick

Milton Dick Speaker

The Prime Minister is being relevant, specifically about the policy that he was asked about. I will give the call to the Leader of the Opposition.

Peter Dutton

Peter Dutton Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, it is on relevance, and I refer to the many statements of former Speaker Smith in relation to the construction of questions. The question is very clear. On the Prime Minister's website it states that a Labor government 'will cut power bills for families and businesses by $275 a year'—

Milton Dick

Milton Dick Speaker

The Prime Minister is answering the question. He is referring to the policy—

Opposition members interjecting—

Order! The Prime Minister is being entirely relevant, and I give him the call.

Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Those opposite—

Opposition members interjecting—

Milton Dick

Milton Dick Speaker

Order! The Leader of the Opposition asked his question in silence. The Prime Minister will be heard in silence.

Order! The Leader of the Opposition!

Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister

Thanks, Mr Speaker. Those opposite are confused by the idea that you could put out a comprehensive policy plan to deal with energy in this country and that you would have proper modelling that was put out last December and wasn't questioned in January, not in February, not in March, not in April and not in May. But of course what was not known at that time is that those opposite had actually sat on and changed the rules to hide from the Australian people the increase in energy costs that occurred on 1 July. They went, as I outlined yesterday, in a series of moves to deliberately stop the Australian people knowing before 21 May that they had baked in an increase. That is their responsibility. (Time expired)