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

Labor continues to perpetuate its false promise of cheaper power bills despite the fact that the economic modelling it relies on is fundamentally flawed. It was Labor's RepuTex modelling that predicted a $275 reduction in household power bills, which has since become a sick joke, as Australian families now pay some of the highest prices in the world. When challenged on these soaring prices, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy points to his 82 per cent renewable target by 2030 while reaching for another economic model, this one called GenCost.

I've cast doubt on GenCost before, but the minister expresses ire over this and doubles down, saying GenCost proves that renewables will be delivering lower prices. But it's now been proven that the minister's claims are baseless. It's been shown that GenCost excludes the cost of transmission, storage and backup generation through to 2030. So everything, from Snowy 2.0, the Kurri Kurri plant, Battery of the Nation and thousands and thousands of kilometres of transmission lines, has been excluded from the GenCost analysis that the minister uses to claim that prices are going down. It's a dishonesty. It's a disgrace.