Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the answers to the coalition's questions during question time today, in particular relating to electricity pricing and infrastructure. In April next year, the turbines at AGL's Liddell station in the Hunter Valley will spin for the last time, and with it 1.2 gigawatts will come off the market. In 2025, the Eraring station will also close, taking another three gigawatts of power off the grid. This is more than four gigawatts of energy, or 20 per cent of the electricity in New South Wales, coming out in this term of parliament. These losses to the market will occur after an already predicted 56 per cent electricity price rise, according to the budget. How high will electricity prices go after that? Who knows? It is clear that energy prices, just like petrol prices, interest rates and household bills, have no clear limit under Labor. When the campaign ad said it wouldn't be easy under this Prime Minister, maybe it should have said, 'It's just going to be bloody tough.' Under Labor, everything is going to go up except your wages.

Senator David Pocock spoke in this place earlier about people in the gallery who had chosen between heating and housing, and he asked Minister Farrell what he would say to them. That minister said he would say hello and give them a wave. As useless as that advice was, it was perhaps a sign of what was to come in this budget: no care, no support and not even a realisation of the burden that families are feeling across Australia What did they get? They got the scrapping of Labor's promise to lower electricity prices by $275 that was repeated 97 times during the election, the ending of the petrol excise rebate and, now, confirmation in the budget papers of massive rises in electricity prices over the coming years.

Labor wasn't content with knocking a hole in the budget of the country; they were lining up mums and dads—our seniors—and putting a hole in their budgets. In fact, to follow the lead of Minister Farrell, I might give my own gratuitous advice to those in the gallery: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. You are more likely to win the lotto with those numbers on Saturday than you are to get a proper answer from this government about the steps they will take to lower electricity prices.

Minister Gallagher stated that renewables are the cheapest form of electricity. But the more renewables enter the market, the more expensive our electricity becomes. I was working on an energy project in the Hunter to build grey hydrogen. Grey hydrogen made in an electrolyser would cost me $2.90 per kilo. Green hydrogen is $9.40 per kilo. How is that cheaper? Reviewing the budget papers, I read that the price of thermal coal is now expected to drop by $438 a tonne, to $60 a tonne. If this is the case, how are prices meant to rise by 50 per cent over that same time? To quote the Muppets from Sesame Street:

One of these things is not like the others,

One of these things just doesn't belong …

We then move to infrastructure. This quote is from the Prime Minister:

Labor will make sure that those investments really stack up using the Infrastructure Australia model that I established.

That was in his budget reply speech in March this year. But just like the broken promise of $275 off bills, it seems Labor and the Prime Minister have broken another promise. We learned that, in the budget, those opposite are funding a suburban rail loop for the Andrews Labor government. It is a flagship commitment of the Andrews government. The Auditor-General's report into the business case concluded that this project was not sufficient, nor were businesses cases provided in a timely manner on four of the projects it reviewed.

I go to three of the notes in the Auditor's report:

But they:

If we were guilty of pork-barrelling, this is a bacon box beyond belief. This is nothing more than buying votes for an unpopular premier who locked people down, and more of the rail loop money should be spent on letting people get out of Victoria so they can live their lives.

Question agreed to.