Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Comments that he continues, through interjections, to say are truthful—that members of this chamber are arsonists. It might be a good idea for someone who has been here a little bit longer, like Senator McKim, to have a bit of a chat to Senator Steele-John about whether it is appropriate on the day that this country is facing bushfires—if we're not lucky, people may die and people may lose their properties—to be referring to anyone in this chamber, regardless of their political party, as an arsonist. As I say, it is beyond offensive and beyond the pale.

Labor has already made its contribution, through Senator Wong, on the bushfires. We have already flagged that we have serious concerns about the way this government manages the issue of climate change, and we will take up those matters. We have many differences of opinion on many matters with members of this government, with members of the Greens and with members of One Nation, but the idea that we would come into this chamber—or go outside the chamber—and call another member of parliament who we disagree with an arsonist, a murderer, an armed robber or any other form of criminal is something that I would never contemplate. I play politics pretty hard—I will be honest about that—but I will never liken another member of this chamber to an arsonist, a murderer or any other criminal. I would encourage Senator Steele-John after this debate is over to think about what he said and maybe issue a public apology for what he has said, for the slight that he has cast upon everyone in this chamber, on the day when this nation is facing a great challenge.

Moving to this bill, I rise to make a short contribution on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Bill 2019. I note, as Senator McAllister has outlined on behalf of the opposition, that there are a few matters outstanding, particularly in relation to the safeguarding of workers' entitlements, that we do hope to resolve with the government at the committee stage. Australia is suffering through the worst energy crisis it has experienced in decades. It is not good enough that the Liberals and Nationals in this Morrison government do not have a real energy policy after six years. Since 2015, under this government gas prices have tripled and wholesale power prices across the National Electricity Market have skyrocketed by 158 per cent, smashing household budgets and jeopardising tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. The Liberal-National government have made 16 attempts to come up with a national energy policy and have been unable to agree with each other the whole way along. That is why we continue to find ourselves in this utter mess where we don't have an energy policy from the government, and, meanwhile, prices rise and reliability goes down.

This bill, sadly, will not end this energy crisis, which is the making of the Liberal-National government. If this government were serious about ending the energy crisis, it would come back with an actual energy policy, maybe one like the National Energy Guarantee, the NEG, which Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer Frydenberg both said would bring down power prices by an average of $550 according to the government's own modelling. But instead we have a jumble of policies with no vision, no guiding principle and no policy coherence. Now, as another example of that, we have this bill, the so-called 'big stick'. Labor was critical of this bill in the last parliament. It risked doing harm and it seriously risks the privatisation of state owned electricity generators, something that we are very conscious of in Queensland.

We have seen the damage that privatisation of energy assets—in particular, electricity generators—causes in other states. In other states, Liberal and National state governments have privatised generators, transmission lines and distribution networks, and that has led to job losses, higher prices and less power reliability. In Queensland, this has been a very big topic of debate over the last couple of state elections. First off, we saw former Premier Campbell Newman from the LNP go to an election promising to sell off Queensland's power generators, transmission lines and distribution networks. Fortunately, he was defeated with that proposal by the Palaszczuk Labor government, and that's why our power assets remain in public hands in Queensland.

Not content with that, Premier Newman's former Treasurer, Tim Nicholls, as leader of the LNP went to the recent state election, again, seeking to privatise Queensland's power assets. Again, fortunately, due to the efforts of unions, the Palaszczuk government, Labor members and concerned communities, we managed to prevent the LNP from privatising our power assets. As a result, in my home state of Queensland we have some of the lowest power prices in the country, due to the fact that our energy assets remain in public hands.

Queenslanders and Australians as a whole do not want to see their essential services, like power, privatised. They do not want to see their power prices increase and they do not want to see the reliability of their power systems decline as a result of privatisation. That's why, over the course of this debate, Labor has pressured the government to stiffen the protections in this bill against future power privatisation. Our concern is simply this: by allowing for divestment and the breaking up and selling off of power assets, that is inevitably going to lead to privatisation. I'm very pleased that the government has taken on board our suggestions and will strengthen this bill to prevent privatisation. I'll leave my contribution at that, but we are pleased that the government has backed down on this matter.