Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every day, when I am speaking to constituents in my community of Lindsay and Western Sydney, one of their top concerns is the astronomical cost of power. In my community and right across Western Sydney—in fact, right across the country—we're paying $1,300 more for energy this year compared to when the Albanese Labor government took office in 2022. It is a shame. Shame on them! Shame on you for doing that! Thirteen hundred dollars in three years—it shouldn't be a joke, but it is. This government is treating everyday Australians as jokes and taking them for granted. It's no small sum of money for many hardworking everyday Australians who live in Lindsay, from Penrith to St Marys and Londonderry down to Luddenham. So many people across the country right now are picking up a second job just to make sure they can cook dinner for their kids and keep the lights on. Seniors are struggling under cost-of-living pressures. As I walk down the high street of Penrith, I can see people living on the streets and double-income families lining up at food banks. I'm particularly worried about seniors in these hot summer days ahead when they're having to make that choice about turning on the air conditioning or not. I'll tell you who needed the $275 reduction in power prices by 2025 from 2022 levels—it's these Australians, the ones I proudly fight for every single day in this place and in my community.

In my most recent community survey, Lindsay residents said they overwhelmingly reject net zero by 2050, with less than a quarter supporting it. Almost 90 per cent of Lindsay people said their energy bills have increased, with nearly half saying this has actually severely impacted their standard of living. Energy prices have soared 40 per cent. How does the government think its renewables-only approach to energy production in this country will keep our manufacturers here? A future made in Australia—that's what the Prime Minister is saying when he runs across the country, putting on a hard hat for a few pictures before he heads off overseas. A future made in Australia under this Labor government's ideological obsession for renewables is contempt for Australian industry.

Manufacturers are being suffocated by their bills piling up because of Labor's abandonment of the 24/7 baseload power that they need to power manufacturing in this country. I've been on many manufacturing floors across Western Sydney, and they all tell me the same thing. Energy prices have increased so much under the Albanese Labor government that they just don't know what to do. For Mascot Steel in Penrith, their energy costs are up more than 40 per cent. Local small businesses have told me their costs have doubled since 2022. Austral Bricks said they're trying to play their part in reducing emissions, but the solar they produce only powers the office, not their manufacturing that we so need in the building of homes across this country. Do you know what fires Austral Bricks' kilns to create thousands of bricks per day for new homes across Western Sydney? It's gas. They need a lot of it. They need more gas, and we need to be pumping more gas into the system. We need to be keeping it for our own domestic consumption. This will lower power prices right now for families and businesses right across Australia.

More than half of my community said affordable energy is their top priority. Gas will help with this. For the sake of Australian industry, we need a sensible, pragmatic energy policy that puts more gas into the system and ensures reliability and affordability. A third of Lindsay residents said 24/7 baseload power was important, with almost 11 per cent saying reducing emissions was their priority—only 11 per cent. The best solution to these two wants is nuclear energy. Scores of countries use nuclear energy or are in the process of creating nuclear power stations.

How else will we power the data centres of the future that we can use? In Western Sydney, when we're looking to the future, we are talking about the data centres of the future. People in this country want to store our data at home, not offshore. But we need power right now. That power is drawn from our local energy grids.

My community recognises the need for nuclear energy in the future. That's why, in the results from my survey, it came across strongly—with percentages in the 70s—that people wanted the ban on nuclear energy to be lifted.

It's time that Labor fesses up. Their renewables-only tirade must come to an end, for the sake of Australians—everyday Australians, in my electorate of Lindsay in Western Sydney and right across this country. Labor, listen to the sensible calls. The sensible calls of the Lindsay electorate put cheaper, reliable, 24/7 baseload power before your ideological obsessions.