Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the government call together manufacturers, consumers, gas producers and electricity companies to manage the energy cost crisis. Business owners in Goldstein and elsewhere are already saying they may have to close due to energy costs, and that is before Treasury's forecast increase of 40 to 50 per cent. Prime minister, will the government intervene to bring gas prices back to a sustainable level for domestic consumers and small and large businesses before businesses begin to collapse?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my left and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition can cease interjecting. If a member has been heard in silence on either side of the chamber we need to show respect for the person answering the question as well. I will ask the clock to be reset.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question and for working constructively with the government on these issues. There is no doubt at all that many households and businesses are already doing it tough when it comes to energy prices, Russia's willingness to weaponise energy, which is what they have done, has seen coal, oil and gas prices through the roof globally. They have caused the most significant shock to global energy markets since the 1970s. In Australia, the energy market shock has been compounded by the coalition's lost decade of denial, delay and dysfunction on energy policy, the four gigawatts of dispatchable power that left the system with only one gigawatt coming in.

But we're focused on making energy clean, secure and affordable. In the budget on Tuesday night, by the Treasurer, who did such a good job he can't even get a question from those opposite, we are investing $25 billion to power Australia on cleaner, cheaper energy and reduce emissions. As well as these investments, we are taking action to secure supply reliability of electricity and gas. We have asked the ACCC to examine the code of conduct between gas suppliers and gas customers. It's voluntary to date. We have asked them to advise the government on making it mandatory, ensuring reasonable pricing and improving transparency in prices.

The budget also has a target, a $67 million package, to give the ACCC, the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Operator more powers to monitor gas supply. We are reforming the gas trigger to protect domestic supply. The way the former government set it up you could only consider it once a year. We are moving the ADGSM to quarterly consideration, and just last month a heads of agreement with east coast LNG exporters to deliver 157 petajoules to the domestic market next year, enough to cover the ACCC's forecast shortfall of 56 nearly three times over. Gas supply is not the problem: it's a decade of been inaction, denial, and delay that has left us overexposed after the invasion of Ukraine. We know that there is much more to do to clean up the mess that those opposite left, and we will do it in a way that doesn't make the inflation problem even worse.