Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Well, I will scratch what I've just said and get on with the second reading debate. You're going to be in for a lovely morning, everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, when we think we know what's going on we clearly don't. That's because of what has just happened here, colleagues, with this Labor-Greens dodgy dirty deal on a Thursday—the last sitting Thursday of this parliamentary term. What we have just seen in their attempt to ram this ridiculous piece of legislation through the Senate is, as I said before, a window into the future, a crystal ball moment in which we know exactly what's going to happen under a Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Greens leader Adam Bandt government. It will be a Labor-Greens government where we will, of course, be left with a Greens tail wagging a Labor dog.

Bringing this bill on to have it rammed through the parliament today was contrived as part of some dodgy deal between the two coalition parties: the Australian Labor Party, the former friend of the worker; and the Australian Greens political party. You had the Manager of Government Business in the Senate and the Leader of the Government in the Senate in here watching over to make sure that this deal was brought to fruition. It's very disappointing to see this. We have Australian households in a cost-of-living crisis. The reality is that the legislation before us, the Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, does nothing to address the problems that we have in this country. Any occupant of this chamber—any senator from anywhere in the country—would be aware of the fact that Australians are struggling under the cost of living.

One of the biggest portions of the pressure that these households and businesses are facing is energy prices. This is not a new problem. This is something Australians have now been struggling with for the better part of 2½ years. Before the last election, the Prime Minister told Australians 97 times that their power prices would go down by $275 a year. It's a figure that, in a very Trotskyite type of way, the Labor Party have tried to scratch from history. No-one refers to this $275 figure anymore. It's like it never happened. But, of course, it was a key element in the promises that was made to Australian households. It was a key element of the Australian Labor Party's offering to the Australian people. I remember the Prime Minister saying to Australians, 'My word is my bond.' His word was, in this case, that, when it came to power prices, Australians would be $275 better off under his government than under the alternative. Well, if we fast-forward the clock and we forget about the 97 times that promise was made on this issue—that is, again, just for clarity, that Australian households and businesses would be $275 better off—the reality is that here we are, nearly three years on from the election, and it's gone in the opposite direction. On average, we have households now paying $1,000 more per year than they were at the date when that promise was made. Far from being just a broken promise, it is an abject failure of government to do what they owe to the Australian community. It isn't just about honouring promises, about making sure that the bond that was offered to the Australian people is honoured; it's about actually doing the right thing by Australian households and finding ways to bring down energy prices.

With that as context, why are we here, on the eve of an election, debating legislation that will do nothing to help the government honour its election promises and nothing to help Australian households with the burden of skyrocketing power prices, amongst all of the other cost-of-living issues we have? It is because, as I said before, we are staring into the looking glass at what a Labor-Green government would look like. It demonstrates the tone-deaf nature of this Labor-Green outfit that, in all the contributions we hear—I wonder whether we will hear about the cost of living from government speakers on this legislation. I'm not wondering whether we will hear about the cost of living from Greens speakers. That is not part of their lexicon. They do not refer to this issue that impacts most Australians, because it doesn't suit their narrative. And that is because, when you go with Greens ideals, when you follow the Greens path, when the Labor dog is being wagged by the Greens tail, nothing helps with the cost of living.

As I said earlier when we were debating whether we should be rushing this legislation through—legislation, I might also point out, that will not be subject to any legislative scrutiny now because of this dodgy dirty deal—when you follow the Greens pathway, as this government sadly is today under the supervision of the Leader of the Government in the Senate and the Manager of Government Business in the Senate, who were here watching to make sure that the Greens got their wishes, you can be guaranteed that Australians will be worse off. Anything the Greens say is a good idea you can take as read is a bad idea. It is anti-jobs, it is anti cost-of-living relief and it is against what Australians actually need. To have a party of government teaming up on the eve of an election to give effect to this terrible, economically destructive, job-destroying agenda that applies further pressure to households is, frankly, an alarming development. But it is not surprising. As we head off from this building this afternoon, I suspect we won't be coming back, given the government's desire to pass all of this legislation in a hurried fashion and to tick the boxes with their inner-city-elite voters, who like the sorts of things that this government is trying to rush through. This is a preview of what we will have from this government.