David Smith (Bean, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. How is the Albanese Labor government providing the overdue leadership on energy policy that had been missing for nearly a decade?

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my friend for the question. The budget brought down by the Treasurer on Tuesday night certainly provides that leadership for energy, with $20 billion in funding for Rewiring the Nation, $2 billion for powering the nation, a quarter of a billion for community batteries, funding for our regulators and operator to implement the better regulation of energy that's been agreed with state and territory energy ministers, and much more. This is all the leadership that we are providing after a decade of denial and delay.

As I said before, the government was also faced with a choice about being honest with the Australian people, including the pressures on energy prices in the budget—being very upfront and explicit about it in the budget—or taking the alternative approach, of not being honest with the Australian people. And that, we know, has a precedent, by the member for Hume, the former minister, who, on 8 April, signed into law a regulation to delay the release of the energy price rises until after the election. Now, I understand his reasons for doing so. I understand his sensitivity. There's been a lot of commentary about election promises and power prices. And, in the 2019 election, which was won by the coalition, the member for Hume promised a 25 per cent reduction in the average wholesale energy price. That was their promise in 2019. And the Deputy Leader of the Opposition says prices went down. Wholesale prices went up, 240 per cent. If the Leader of the Opposition thinks that 's a reduction, we've got a bigger problem than I thought we had. I thought we had a big problem with the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. But even closer to the election the then minister for energy was still at it. In November 2021 he promised a six per cent fall in energy prices by 2024. In November 2021—that's pretty close to the 2022 election. But of course by the time of the 2022 election wholesale prices were up 439 per cent: not down six but up 439 per cent. That is a 'missed it by that much' moment.

We know the minister hid the price rise. But the cover-up gets worse. Yesterday he was asked three times: 'Did you know this was going to happen?' Three times he said, 'No, I didn't'. He denies knowing there were energy price rises. The then minister, the member for Hume, wants the House and the Australian people to believe he signed a law change to hide a power price rise he didn't know about. He wants us to believe he didn't know that there was a price rise. So he went to all the trouble of asking his department to prepare the paperwork, sending it to the Governor-General, and he didn't know what he was doing. Did he do it with his eyes shut? Did the member for Cook do it instead? We'll add it to the dossier of dodgy documents the member for Hume is so famous for. I hope he's not working on the Leader of the Opposition's speech for tonight while he's being— (Time expired)

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question goes to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, will you apologise to Australians for your broken promise to deliver a $275 cut to their electricity bills, a promise you made on 97 occasions?

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

I thought I might get another question on infrastructure. I thought I might, but not quite. Instead, I get a question from a coalition that announced 22 different energy policies and did not land a single one. Not one. Unlike us, who put out modelling by RepuTex in 2021. Not Labor Party modelling: independent modelling from Australia's leading energy economists in 2021.

What we did, of course, was to continue to fulfil our commitment to the Rewiring the Nation program. It was there in the budget. The rewiring the nation program, as the minister for energy has pointed out, is based on the Australian Energy Market Operator's integrated systems plan of making sure that transmission was fit for purpose in the 21st century. We have been upfront about the challenges which are there, the challenges which have been created by two major issues. One, of course, is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has had an impact on global energy prices. Apparently that has skipped the attention of the coalition. The second is the fact that we inherited such a failed position of four gigawatts of energy leaving the system but only one gigawatt going back in. It wasn't just the Liberal Party who committed to a 25 per cent reduction in the wholesale electricity price by the end of 2021 during the 2019 campaign. The National Party did the same thing.

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

The member for Fairfax, on a point of order?

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question went to the broken promise of $275 and whether the Prime Minister would apologise to the Australian—

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

It was a broad, partisan question. I am giving the call to the Prime Minister when the House comes to order.

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

It said very clearly that they would have a 25 per cent reduction in the average wholesale electricity price. They went through all these things that they said would happen, like Battery of the Nation, that just didn't eventuate, and their billion-dollar fund for new energy, of which zero was delivered. Not a single watt, let alone a gigawatt, was delivered as a result of this policy. Instead of that, what they also did was to go on these exercises in, basically, nonsense—spending money, including $4 million they planned and funded to the proponents, mind you, of the Collinsville coal-fired power plant.

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

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting.

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

There were $4 million to the people who were building it, the private sector operators who were building it. They gave them $4 million. (Time expired)

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. With the United Nations, the International Energy Agency and the world's scientists saying there can be no new investment in coal and gas if we're to meet net-zero targets, why does the budget contain $30 million to frack for gas in the Beetaloo basin? Does the Prime Minister agree with his other minister that gas is just a low-emissions hydrocarbon, and is low-emission hydrocarbon the new clean coal?

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the benefit of the House and the Leader of the Greens, the $30 million you're speaking of is from the cooperative drilling program that was a commitment under the former government. That money has been expended or is in the current use of those contracts. It goes to the question asked earlier to the minister for industry, who's not responsible for that work. This government has ended that program, and the remaining part of that funding envelope has now been returned to the budget.