Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It has only been four weeks since the Labor government's first budget and that budget wasn't so much about their own figures but it had a shocking impact on the budgets of average Australian families. In that budget it was revealed that energy prices for Australian families in the next two years are set to skyrocket by 56 per cent. There has been massive community outrage at this, especially given that only six months before the government had promised to actually cut people's power bills by $275.

Since then, in the past four weeks, the government has flown more kites than you'd see on a windy beach. Every day there is a new kite being flown about what they're going to do about energy prices. This is despite them saying that they had planned six months ago to actually deal with them. I've only just been speaking to some major energy companies this morning, here in this place, and they're shaking their heads. They're shaking their heads at this government because they have no idea what they're going to do. Every day, basically, they wake up, they read the paper and they read about the latest battles that are going on with this divided government—this government with no direction—about how they're going to get people's energy bills down.

I think it's important to go through the absolute rabble that this government has been over the past month. On 28 October 2022 on the New Daily website there was a story which said, 'Labor refuses to rule out gas export cap'. It said this:

Former competition watchdog boss Rod Sims has suggested the government threaten gas providers with export limits to try to lower Australian prices.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen didn't rule out such as drastic move when asked about it on Friday morning.

So that's on the table. They have no idea if there's going to be a gas export cap and we still don't know.

Then on 26 October, the Australian reported in a headline, 'Windfall levy and changes to GST ruled out':

Jim Chalmers has ruled out changes to the GST or hitting gas exporters with a windfall profits tax …

Only about two weeks later after the Treasurer, nonetheless, had ruled out a windfall profits tax, the Australian reported on its front page, on 11 November, under the headline 'Labor risks new row with miners over coal and gas tax', that Anthony Albanese had not ruled out a new tax on gas and coal to help ease energy prices for households and businesses, and had said that the government is 'working through the issue'. I wonder if Mr Albanese had spoken to his Treasurer, who had ruled out such a tax just two weeks before? What the hell is going on with this government? Why can't they keep things in order? We are talking about extremely serious matters which they are messing around with because they have no idea what they're doing.

A few weeks on, by 29 November, there was a story in the Australian where they had come up with a new idea, 'Anthony Albanese's fix for electricity bills: direct subsidies for homes, businesses'. This was the third energy plan in just a few weeks. It was floated this week. Also, on the same day—on the very same day—the ABC reported that the government was to cap wholesale gas prices as part of a market intervention to lower power prices. So that was a record: they had two energy policies on the same day, which were briefed out to different newspapers. No-one has any idea what they're doing, let alone themselves. They have no idea what they're doing here. They made promises; in the words of Maverick, they tried to cash cheques that their body couldn't keep six months ago at the election. They said they could cut our power bills by $275, but when they got to government they had no idea how to do this. Instead, we're facing skyrocketing power bills ahead of Christmas this year.

Well, once we leave this place, this government have to get their act together because the Australian people rely on it. They need to get some consistency into their energy policies, not this rabble that's going on and playing out in our nation's newspapers. They need to talk to these energy producers, they need to talk to the industrial customers and, most of all, they need to talk to the Australian people—and none of these weasel words, this corporatese that they've been using and which was said again by their leader today. He said that they're going to transition workers to new jobs. That means you're going to lose your job. People know that. When they hear the word 'transition' that means, 'I'm going to lose my job.'

And if that's what you mean then you should just say it. It's a lot more trustworthy when you say that, because when you use words like 'transition', you sound like a second-rate HR manager at a large business. You sound like the character from the Dilbert cartoon, Catbert. You're all a bunch of Catberts over there when you use words like 'transition' instead of speaking plainly to the Australian people. If I know anything about coal miners in this country, they don't take kindly to the rubbish and the BS that sometimes comes from this other mob. Just speak the truth to us and be honest.

Question agreed to.