Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

We have an enormous task in front of this government and in front of Australia. It is a task that is in the national interest. It's a task that has been made so much harder by two things that your side of politics could have made a patriotic national contribution to, and that is by spending the last ten years of the miserable arc of the Morrison-Turnbull-Abbott inaction period actually building a little bit of generation capability and building a little bit of transmission capacity—doing a little bit of work and lifting a bit in the national interest. Instead, what happened? Nothing. Four gigawatts went out of the electricity system, and only one gigawatt went in.

Off that base of inaction, we are working hard as a government to deliver 99 projects. They have been approved by this government to deliver energy for Australia and electricity for industry. But, of course, we started ten years behind because of the failure there. Secondly, wandering around in regional communities using the kind of hyperbole and misinformation generated mostly from internet offshore extremist politics is not in the national interest. (Time expired)