Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, the Nationals certainly weren't very agnostic on the weekend, were they? We saw what came in, echoing the thoughts of the right wing of the Liberal Party and trying to kill off the clean energy target. That's not very agnostic at all. It's no wonder that we see so much chaos, dysfunction and misinformation coming from those opposite.

You only have to look at the inconsistency from the leadership of the federal government. We've had the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, walk into the chamber carrying a lump of coal. We've seen him say he is for coal-fired power generation; we've seen him say he's against coal-fired power generation. We've seen the Prime Minister say he's for coal-fired power generation and we've seen him say he's against coal-fired power generation. This is all in recent months. It is because of a lack of leadership from the Prime Minister that this is happening.

There is no clear direction on energy from the federal government of Australia. I'm going to break it down into three parts: their record since they were elected; their record since the Finkel report came down; and their record when it comes to long-term policy decision-making. In each one of these areas, they are severely lacking.

A few people have talked about their record since they got elected. We know that former Prime Minister Abbott promised that power bills would be lowered by $550, yet here we are four years later and they're up almost $1,000 around the country. We know they had a war on renewables, halting investment in new generation and halting job creation at the same time. Following a question from Senator McAllister today, we know that they've overseen 4,000 megawatts of generation exit the market, including Hazelwood.

The true tragedy of Hazelwood closing was the fact that that community and those workers got six months to prepare. That is absolutely ridiculous, but that is what happened on this government's watch. Yet here they are crying crocodile tears for the workers at Liddell, when that company has been responsible in giving significant notice and coming up with a plan to transition those workers into other jobs. Yet that side are prepared to play politics. We have the Minister for the Environment and Energy, the faux friend of the worker, Josh Frydenberg, suddenly saying he is concerned for those workers and wanting to provide an ongoing future for them. It is playing politics with their lives. What we saw with Hazelwood is their true record when it comes to it.

Their record since they were elected is a sorry one, but their record since Finkel was released is just as dire. More than three months ago now the Finkel report came down. What have we seen in regard to the clean energy target? No progress whatsoever. In fact, based on what we saw at the weekend, it's probably regressed. They're making no progress at all in trying to reach an agreement within the coalition, let alone talking to the Labor Party to provide that certainty that so many people have spoken about. We've seen numerous examples of the Prime Minister having cups of tea with energy retailers, yet the best we've seen out of that is a letter. That's all consumers are going to see by the end of the year: they're going to get a letter. That's the best the Prime Minister could do.

Then, when it comes to the long-term policy and his discussions with AGL, every time they have a meeting we get different reports. The Treasurer and the energy minister say they have agreed that they will look at selling it, and then AGL contradict that. We have seen in the last 24 hours similar examples where the records of the government and of AGL are quite different. This is the chaos and dysfunction that we're seeing from that side with regard to energy. Today we put questions to Senator Scullion around the domestic gas security mechanism. We have seen uncertainty around its legitimacy because it was brought in by Senator Canavan. When asked about it yesterday, this was the response from Senator Brandis: 'We have restricted gas exports.' It was clear today, from the nonanswer from Senator Scullion, that they have done nothing like that as yet. We know that they have time to do it, but so far they have done nothing on that, contradicting the answer that we had from Senator Brandis yesterday. And there has been no action on the five-minute settlement when it comes to wholesale power prices, something that has been identified that can drive down costs. This is the record of the government when it comes to long-term energy policy. It is a sorry tale indeed. Overall what we are seeing under the government is prices up, pollution up, reliability down and a government that blame everyone else because they have a lack of leadership to settle a long-term policy for the benefit of Australians. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.