Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution, albeit a very brief one, on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Energy Price Relief Plan) Bill 2022. Given that the debate, in total, guillotines at 4.30, I will make my remarks incredibly short to ensure that we have some time in the Committee of the Whole this afternoon. I want to address three issues. In the first instance, though, I foreshadow that I will be moving a second reading amendment to refer schedule 1 of the bill to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 7 February 2023.

The first issue I want to address, as we saw this morning, when the motion in relation to the hours of meeting and routine of business for today was moved, is the absolute chaos in terms of the process—if, in fact, you can even call it a process—that this bill has been through to actually get to this place, but also the sham of the Senate sitting today for about 3½ hours. For anybody listening in, including those in the gallery who are interested to read more about this, I refer you to an article in the Australian today by Henry Ergas, an esteemed economist, titled 'Bill to set gas prices a power grab by stealth'. The first three paragraphs should worry all Australians.

Late last Friday, Treasury, setting what may well be a new record, gave interested parties all of two working days to comment on a 54-page draft bill that threatens to up-end gas industry investments worth billions of dollars.

Compounding the disregard for good policy process, there was no sign of a regulation impact statement—

insert 'shame!', quite frankly, there from me—

assessing the proposed legislation's consequences, or even of a ministerial exemption from the statutory requirement for a RIS to be issued.

But if any legislation merits serious scrutiny, rather than being rushed through parliament, it is this one, whose effects will weigh on Australia's economy for decades to come.

To anybody listening in, that's from an article by Henry Ergas in the Australian today. It is an absolute disgrace that we have just over 1½ hours left now to interrogate this bill.

The second issue I would like to address is in relation to the test. The test for the Albanese government is a very simple one in relation to this legislation: will Australians' bills in the coming months and years go up or down? Because they have promised one thing and one thing alone: energy bill relief. So that is the test. There is no other test. The next time, as Senator Duniam so eloquently said, you open your energy bill, has Labor passed the test?

The bad news is this—and, again, because we don't have a lot of time to scrutinise the bill, we won't be able to explore this in detail: despite the cost savings in this bill, and we support the cost savings, the bill itself will leave consumers worse off. Buried in the announcement of the bill is that energy prices are now forecast by the government to increase by an extra six per cent in the 2023-24 years than they were at the time of the budget. They're going higher, in other words. In the budget the forecast was 30 per cent. Treasury officials have confirmed that this is a revised forecast informed by the Australian Energy Regulator. What does that actually mean in plain English? This is what it means: your bill is still going up. The government's own modelling—this is their modelling—means Australians' energy bill will still increase by over $400 in 2023-24 and, further, by a cumulative $702 over the next two financial years. You'd think, listening to those on the other side, that there was a windfall today for Australians in relation to their energy prices, but the government's own modelling shows that bills are still going up.

There is a third issue I'd like to briefly address. In her speech, Senator Gallagher said, 'We've consulted with industry.' The bad news is this, as Mr Dutton said:

It's little wonder energy experts are calling this package the single worst piece of energy policy seen anywhere in the last 20 years.

Others say:

… the government's proposed gas market legislation risks the very foundations of the east coast energy grid and all who use it.

Even worse, others say:

The damage has already started: nearly all gas contracting has shrivelled up in the last few days.

Further, others said, 'This policy breaks the gas market design that has kept the lights on for decades.' And the government tells you it's going to work. I'd listen to the experts if it were me, the experts who are in this industry and who know the effect of this type of government intervention.

I said I would keep my comments brief. I end with this: yet again, the test for the Albanese Labor government in relation to this legislation is a simple one. Will Australians' bills in the coming months and years, because this is not a one-off, go up or down? That is the test. There is no other test.