I can tell the House that it was with great sadness that the member for Grey had to get up and ask his question to the Prime Minister today—a question the Prime Minister did not have the decency to answer. But you feel very personally when people in your electorates lose their jobs and the business that sustains them, their families, their lifestyles and their communities because it closes down. I can tell everyone with a very heavy heart that the member for Grey is dealing with these particular issues at the moment. I think the causes of these issues need to be taken a lot more seriously by the government, and concern and care for those workers who have lost their jobs need to be taken with a lot more of a sense of responsibility

The issue I have with this government is—you can call it ideology; you can call it whatever you want. Sometimes, if you want to believe something enough, you can delude yourself, and the government with its ideology about what renewables can and can't do deludes itself that a grid dominated by renewable energy can sustain heavy manufacturing in this country. It is not the case, and it has been shown around the world—Germany is suffering from this, as are many parts of Europe—that, when you try to run a significant heavy industrial economy using intermittent power as the dominant source, it physically doesn't work. We can argue across the chamber on the politics of this, but it's actually about the physics. It's about the physics of whether intermittent power, which, in moderation and in certain circumstances, is a very good thing, can sustain the sort of manufacturing that is necessary for this country to have sovereign capability?

Deputy Speaker, the member for Calwell is interjecting out of his seat. It's highly disorderly, and I'd ask you to make a ruling on it.

I actually warned the member for McEwen three times now. You need to stop interjecting. Also, Member for Calwell, I'm noting you as well.

I think the member for Barker made a really good point: the demand for these products that we're making, that we have been making in Australia, such as structural steel, which is basically a combination of iron ore and the energy that we can produce, is not going to reduce globally. We still need to build things made of steel, and structural steel is still going to have a huge demand around the world. The only difference is that, because of the failed energy policies of the Albanese government, these industries and these processes are going to be moved offshore, like so many things. What are we going to do then? We're going to purchase them back.

The emissions will leave Australia, but they won't leave the globe. The jobs will leave Australia, but they won't leave the globe. And, as the member for Barker quite rightly pointed out, the conditions, the safety and the energy efficiency of the processes of structural steel, to fill the world's demand, will not go away, but it'll be made somewhere with less efficiency, less worker safety and less worker remuneration. That's happening in so many industries across Australia: we're pushing things offshore, because we're not facing the reality of what type of energy mix and grid is required to sustain heavy industry in a country that has a bounty of iron ore, a bounty of high-quality coking coal, a bounty of gas and a bounty of, yes, uranium.

I believe it will not be too long before the Australian Labor Party is going to have to face this folly of being too reliant on intermittently generated power and come to the conclusion, like the rest of the world, that some form of nuclear power is going to be necessary for Australia to continue with the standard of living we have had.

I rise as the final speaker in this MPI, which gives me one significant advantage: I've now heard the opposition's entire argument, and, after listening carefully, I can report that it has roughly the structural integrity of a flat pack cupboard assembled without the instructions, blindfolded.

The member for Wannon asked this House to condemn the government over energy prices. There is just one problem with that argument. I've already seen what the coalition do when they are actually responsible for energy policy. They had nearly a decade—not a week, not a term but a decade. During that time, 24 of Australia's 28 coal-fired stations brought forward their closure dates. Four gigawatts of dispatchable generation left the system. Only one gigawatt came on. That is not an energy transition; that is watching the furniture leave the house and then acting surprised there is nowhere left to sit. Also, they promised wholesale electricity prices below $70 a megawatt hour. By the time they left office, wholesale prices were above $280. There are failed targets, but then there is missing the dartboard, the wall behind it and possibly the building.

The member for Hume promised a billion-dollar program to add another 3,800 megawatts of electricity. Three years later on, not $1 and not one kilowatt have been delivered. They even managed to put part of Australia's oil reserve in Texas. Nothing says Australian energy security quite like: 'Don't worry, we've got the fuel. It's just in another continent.' That is Australia-made for the coalition. When electricity prices were about to rise before the 2022 election, did they fix the problem? No, they changed the rules so Australians would not see the price rise until after polling day. Apparently, their preferred form of renewable energy was recycling the bad news until after the election. And that is the record behind this MPI.

Coal-fired power stations do not get younger because the Liberal Party gives a press conference. They age, they become less reliable, and they break down, a bit like the LNP membership. And when large generators suddenly come offline, prices spike. The real choice is not between changing the energy system and leaving it as is; the system is already changing. The choice is whether Australia manages that change properly or repeats the coalition's approach of crossing its fingers and hoping power stations achieve immortality.

Labor has a plan to replace ageing generation with renewables, backed by storage, gas and hydro and the transmission needed to connect it. Since 2022, more than 22 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity have been added to the grid, and the independent experts have made this clear. The Australian Energy Market Operator says, 'Renewables firmed with storage and backed by gas remain the lowest-cost roadmap.' The CSIRO says, 'Renewables, supported by storage, remain the lowest-cost new generation investment.' The Australian Energy Market Commission has warned that delaying renewable generation and transmission would put upward pressure on residential electricity prices.

So what is the coalition alternative? It's to keep ageing plants running longer, slow down replacement generation, or spend years arguing about nuclear reactors that would take another decade to build and somehow insist this will make the next household electricity bill cheaper. That is not an energy policy. It is a very expensive refusal to not buy a calendar. Even Australian business has been pleading for certainty. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry described the coalition's approach as effectively 'a plan not to have a plan', and that might be the most accurate coalition energy policy document ever written.

This is the central problem. They had nearly a decade to plan for ageing coal. They did not. They had nearly a decade to build replacement generation. They did not. They promised cheaper wholesale electricity; they delivered dramatically higher prices, and when those prices became politically inconvenient, they tried to hide them. And now they want Australians to believe the same people who created the policy vacuum have suddenly discovered the answer. Australians are entitled to expect cheaper and more reliable energy. They are entitled to expect this government to keep working until power bills come down. And the coalition cannot spend another decade setting fire to the kitchen, handing Labor the fire extinguisher and then walking back in complaining about the smell of the smoke. They are not the answer to Australia's energy problems. They are the group project that helped create them.

Debate adjourned.