Thank you to the member for Groom for bringing this important motion before the House. It's quite telling that we're here talking about affordability and energy reliability on the same day that more than 600 workers were given their redundancy package at the Whyalla steelworks. Six hundred families and 600 jobs are gone, because energy prices in South Australia are way too high and are not reliable. Before the last election, the Prime Minister told Australians that life would be cheaper under him. Four years on, it's worth testing that promise. Food is up 18 per cent, rent is up 24 per cent and skyrocketing, and electricity is up 40 per cent. Under the last coalition government, power prices rose three-tenths of a per cent year on year. Under this government, that number is 8.8 per cent. That is 29 times the rate.

Instead of the promised cut of $275 a year, Australian households have spent an extra $23 billion on energy bills. We were told to trust the modelling. Well, here's a number the modelling never mentioned: more than 244,000 Australians are now on energy hardship programs. Despite our nation's abundant resources, energy poverty in Australia is at its highest levels on record. If that is not a sign something has gone badly wrong with the Albanese Labor government's energy policy, then what is?

At question time, we asked the minister about energy policy and we got a programmed response. 'Well, Member for Cooke, did you know there are 2,000 cheaper home batteries in your electorate?' That is the minister's response. Yet, last week, the ABC reported that Labor's Cheaper Home Batteries Program is littered with fraud and misconduct. In four months, 95 tip-offs have landed with the regulator, and the reports are serious—mocked up installs, signatures being forged and unlicensed tradies delivering unsafe or broken systems. This is another example of a government program being rorted, and it's taxpayers who are paying for it. Of the roughly 3,500 batteries that have been inspected, 62 per cent were found to be substandard. This program should be paused, audited and referred to the independent inquiry before another dodgy dangerous battery is installed.

In South Australia, my state, we have a part-time energy grid dominated by wind and solar. It works well when it's sunny and windy, but it does not work well when it is dark and calm. It is this unreliability and the price spikes that come with it that are crippling industries in the regions. As I said before, today, 600 workers in Whyalla lost their jobs because of this government's energy policy. In June, South Australian wholesale prices went above $20,000 a megawatt-hour. To put that into perspective, it would cost $4.50 to boil a kettle of water. A grid that only works when the weather cooperates is not a grid that industry can plan around.

It is no shock that our heavy industries struggle to compete in the global market. Australian taxpayers are paying twofold—firstly, through the higher power bills and, secondly, through ongoing bailouts. That's $240 million for Nyrstar, $3.1 billion for Whyalla, $2.5 billion for Tomago—the list goes on. If we as a nation utilised our resources and focused on lowering energy costs, we would have thriving industries, a diversified economy and a more prosperous nation. Energy-intensive industries are falling like dominoes, and, each time, the taxpayers are asked to catch them.

There are two ways forward: bail these industries out forever, or give them the energy they can afford and rely on. We cannot bail our way to a competitive economy. The coalition has a plan. We will scrap net zero and scrap Labor's carbon taxes, including the safeguard mechanism, which is sending industry offshore. We will back any technology that delivers affordable and reliable energy. We will not pick winners and losers; we will let the market do its job and bring prices down.

There is enormous economic potential across the Northern Territory, and, in this place, I've spoken often about Territory gold, the best solar radiation in the world. The Territory is at the forefront of Australia's energy transition. Projects like SunCable and Energy North are tapping into the incredible potential of solar energy to power local industry and to meet the energy needs of our neighbours into the future as well. Big IT players like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are very interested in Territory gold to power their datacentre activities in AI and the cloud. This demand taps into the geographical and institutional stability of Australia and our membership of the Five Eyes security arrangement, along with access to the required telecommunications and other infrastructure. But these investments must benefit the community and deliver for our national interest. The PM's new Australian standards for AI data centres will make it clear: if you want to build here, you have to make our economy and society stronger.

The rules are clear. Add to our energy supply; don't drain it. Strengthen the grid; don't weaken it. Use water responsibly and offset your impact. Hire and train Australians; contribute to our science and research; be part of the community, not a stranger behind a barbed wire fence. These expectations put the needs of the Australian people first—where they should be—ensuring our communities benefit directly through jobs, investment in skills and innovation, while strongly supporting Australia's clean energy transition and safeguarding our long-term water security, something I spoke about in this place just this morning.

Our federal government will work with the states and territories and market participants to implement the expectations, particularly through the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council. Data centres have enormous potential to expand new renewable investment, but it's important we work together across jurisdictions and with industry to get the investment settings right so that we can continue to keep our systems secure and energy prices low for all consumers.

However, as Minister Bowen stated, the Commonwealth will not be standing by and letting a race to the bottom of states and territories falling over themselves to attract data centres at the cost to household bills. At the national cabinet meeting earlier this month, it was agreed that state—and territory, in our case—owned power can be used if the Commonwealth, by the Australian Energy Regulator, is satisfied it won't push up bills or weaken reliability. If a jurisdiction believes that they have state-owned energy that is cheaper than renewable energy, they'll be able to make that case to the Commonwealth for consideration by the energy regulator on a case-by-case basis. But the regulator will have to be convinced that it would put downward pressure on bills and be cheaper than renewables. That's a very high bar indeed, but we've set it high to ensure that household bills don't go up and it doesn't make it harder for other industries to do business. However, given that high bar has been put into position, the Northern Territory chief minister, when asked just last week about potential savings on power bills from Beetaloo fracked gas, said, 'I would love to say yes. Unfortunately, that's not going to be the case.' So obviously for the Northern Territory, and I gather for some other jurisdictions as well, there'll be a lot more work to do to make that case.

Renewables will be king because renewables are cheaper. Since coming to government, we've acted to help with power bill relief, gas price caps and investing in cheap renewables, all of which those opposite the coalition opposed. After a decade of delay, dysfunction and denial under those opposite, under the coalition, our government is now getting on with the job of rebuilding Australia's energy grid with the lowest-cost form of energy, renewable energy. We're acting to replace ageing, expensive power with cheap, reliable energy which takes advantage of our abundant resources, the sun and the wind, and that is the sensible and commonsense way forward for our nation.

I rise to support the motion from the member for Groom. Energy is the economy and, unfortunately, right now, the economy is stuffed, because when energy becomes more—

I remind the member to use parliamentary language, please.

The economy is stuffed, Madam Deputy Speaker Haines. I think that's true, and I hear that every day from people in my electorate. Every day, people in my electorate come up and tell me—

Perhaps choose another word.

The economy is getting destroyed by these people. If we can't say that in this chamber, I think there's a real problem in parliament right now because I'm meeting small-business owners in my electorate who are going out of business. FJP Manufacturing's energy prices are up 45 per cent for gas, 41 per cent for electricity. They had seven apprentices. They're down to one. Six apprentices have lost their jobs because energy is destroyed and this economy is destroyed. Pick your adjective, but I think it's not worth mincing words here when these are people's jobs in my electorate. These are people's incomes in my electorate. As Bill Kelty said only yesterday, real wages are going down, and it's an insult to the Australian people. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer are insulting people. Right now, when this government is presiding over the biggest collapse of living standards in our living memory. I think the time for politeness and niceties are over, especially if you put it in the light that this government promised $275 off bills four years ago.

There are only two explanations for that. Either (1) they had no idea how these energy markets worked and got it completely wrong or (2) they understood and made that false promise anyway. They're the only two possible scenarios for them being so wrong about energy bills coming down by $275. Instead, we hear that they're up an average of $1,400. That's not close; that's not even in the same ballpark.

Why is the economy so bad? One of the biggest reasons is that energy is so bad. People remember that promise; they also remember the promise about CGT and negative gearing. The problem, as the Prime Minister said, is that 'you can only tell a lie once because people remember it'. What we've seen is a backflip on CGT, we've seen a backflip on negative gearing, we've seen a backflip on trusts, and we've seen a backflip on energy.

Small-business owners in my electorate, all through the manufacturing sites in Caringbah, all through Taren Point, understand this only too well. The government can talk all it wants about low-cost energy, but it's not delivering it. We continue to rise through the OECD in our energy costs. We hear from the CEO of BHP that Australia is an outlier, and they're looking at investing elsewhere in the world because our energy prices and gas prices are two to four times higher than in the US. We hear the CEOs of Cadbury and Mars say that Australia is no longer economical to invest in because of our energy prices.

We hear about Tomago going bankrupt, Whyalla going bankrupt, Nyrstar going bankrupt, Bell Bay going bankrupt and a smelter in Gladstone going bankrupt. All these energy-rich industries are going bankrupt. The only way we are keeping these industries is because this Labor government bails them out, taking the tax dollars of people at home—hardworking Australians. People are out there losing their mortgages, and we're trying to debate which adjective we use for how bad this economy is. They're losing their mortgages—

I remind the member that it is the discretion of the chair to determine what is parliamentary language. I ask you to refrain from continuing to criticise the chair, which is, ultimately, what you're doing, and continue your speech.

I take exception to the terms being used. When I saw a single mother in my electorate last weekend in tears—crying—because she could not make the mortgage repayments on her single bed in Sans Souci. She lost her entire deposit. She was in tears looking at me.

Chair, I request that the member show respect to the chair and respect your ruling.

I take the point of order, and I ask the member, finally, to withdraw the language and to discontinue criticising the chair.

I will not stop talking about the women in Sans Souci who was in tears with me—

The member will take his seat. I call the member for Adelaide.

We know that families are doing it tough out there. All of us in our electorates here can talk to constituents. That's why this government is doing all that it can to put downward pressure on electricity, on energy prices, on supermarket prices and on a whole range of other things.

It's easy to criticise and have no policies in place, but it's harder to actually balance all of this and make sure that we're doing all that we can, as this government is doing. For example, we introduced the Cheaper Home Batteries program, reducing the upfront cost of home batteries by around 30 per cent, helping households dramatically cut their energy bills by 90 per cent. I've met constituents, and I speak to constituents in my electorate who have benefited from this program. Families have told me that their power bills are much lower now, their homes are more energy independent and they have more money left over for groceries, school expenses and household costs. This is real cost-of-living relief. We've also delivered a $1.7 billion energy-saving package, helping households, small businesses, farmers and local governments reduce their energy use and lower their bills.

While those on the other side have spent years debating climate change, one of the reasons we're in this position is that there was no energy policy. I think there were about nine different policies that were changed. Just getting the acceptance that we have to go to renewables has delayed us for many, many years. The whole idea is that we have more players in the market and more renewables in the market, which will bring prices down.

We understand that lowering emissions and lowering energy costs can go hand in hand, and we know that energy bills remain, as I said, a challenge for many Australians. That's why we've also established the Consumer Energy Resources Taskforce to help households get the most out of new energy technology, compare plans and switch to cheaper offers, because Australians deserve practical help, not political pointscoring.

When gas prices came under pressure, we took action. We introduced the Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme, requiring exporters to make gas equivalent to 20 per cent of exports available for the Australian market. That means more Australian gas for Australian households and businesses, it means putting downward pressure on domestic gas prices, and it means protecting Australian families and industry from global price shocks and volatility such as we've seen in the last few months with everything that's taking place in the Strait of Hormuz.

The difference is simple. While the opposition talks about problems, we on this side, the government, are delivering and producing solutions. We are helping families lower their energy bills, we're helping small businesses manage costs, we are strengthening Australia's energy security and we are ensuring that Australian resources deliver benefits for Australian people. So the difference between this government and those opposite is quite simple. When Australians were worried about rising power bills, we acted. When families needed help with the cost of living, we delivered. When businesses needed certainty, we put practical measures in place to strengthen energy security and lower costs. We are not asking Australians to wait decades for a solution; we are trying to help them here and now through cheaper home batteries, energy-saving initiatives, support for households and small businesses and reforms to keep more Australian gas in the Australian market. That way, we are putting downward pressure on energy costs while building a stronger and more secure energy future. While the opposition talks about the problem, this government is helping Australians pay the bills, because every policy we deliver is focused on one goal: ensuring Australian families, farmers and small businesses have the support that they need to get ahead with affordable and reliable energy.

At the last election, when we looked at the policy of the coalition, all we could see was some pie-in-the-sky nuclear plant to provide energy for Australians. It would have taken years and years—and still would take years and years—to develop, with billions and billions of dollars of cost. Whoever builds this nuclear plant to provide energy will want to recoup their money, so, for the first 20 years, there's going to be no reduction of energy costs. This is what those opposite proposed at the last federal election.

We need solutions, we need them now, and this government is taking all the action that we can take to make sure we bring downward pressure.

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.