Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade) Share this | Hansard source

When Australians finally saw the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's incoming government brief for the Albanese government, after months of resistance and Senate pressure, they saw confirmation of what they already suspected: Labor's energy and emissions policies are costing more, delivering less and pushing Australia further from its own targets.

Behind the 97 per cent of pages that were redacted partly or in full sits a clear truth. The brief warns:

… the draft Default Market Offer points to a further significant increase in retail electricity prices next financial year.

It also concedes:

Emission reductions need to accelerate rapidly …

And it concedes that a strong push is now required to meet the government's 2030 target. In reference to the government's recently released 2035 target, the former Treasury official Stephen Anthony has called Labor's work the 'most appalling bit of policy analysis that has ever come out of Treasury'. In other words, it's higher prices, slower progress, no transparency whatsoever and deepening policy failure.

Labor went to the 2022 election promising cheaper power, more renewables and lower emissions, and on every account it is failing. Electricity prices have risen more than 30 per cent on Labor's watch. The AER's default market offer on 1 July showed residential bills rising by up to 9.7 per cent and small-business bills by 8½ per cent, around $228 a year extra for Australian households that are already struggling. That's after the Prime Minister promised savings of $275 by 2025, but, instead, Australians are paying up to $1,300 more.

Just yesterday the latest ABS data showed that inflation is once again surging under the Albanese Labor government, increasing by 1.3 per cent over a single quarter to 3.2 per cent annually, outside the upper limit of the Reserve Bank's target band. Fuelling this increase was one household bill: electricity prices soared by 24 per cent over the course of the year, including by nine per cent in the September quarter and eight per cent in the June quarter. The ABS itself stated this was 'primarily related to households in Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania having higher out-of-pocket costs' than during the same period last year. The government no doubt will try to blame this on the end of the temporary energy rebates. But, even without those sugar hits, electricity prices rose by five per cent in the September quarter. This is what Labor's energy policy looks like in practice: higher bills, higher inflation and higher interest payments.

The debate on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Australian Energy Regulator Separation) Bill 2025 revealed the same thing. While the bill itself dealt with governance, evidence confirmed that the regulator now operates in a market distorted by poor policy and rising costs. Labor's own former advisor Professor Ross Garnaut has warned the government will miss its renewables target by a 'big margin'. He noted that there are virtually no investment commitments for solar and wind generation without government underwriting through the Capacity Investment Scheme. This is not market confidence; it is market retreat, and, when governments must prop up private projects with taxpayer guarantees, consumers and taxpayers pay the ultimate price.

The Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner's 2024 report warned that Labor's approach of net zero at any cost is leaving regional Australians behind. It found that communities are not being informed, not being respected and, at worst, being patronised. It highlighted growing concern over inconsistent planning and the absence of any plan for project decommissioning and recycling. Landholders feel they've lost control of their property, and over a thousand complaints have now been lodged since the office was established. Australians support emissions reduction, but they expect honesty, consultation and affordability. None are being delivered. This is not the transition that Australians were promised. It is an experiment conducted on their power bills.

The heavily redacted incoming government brief confirms the truth: Labor's energy and emissions policies are failing households, failing the economy and failing the environment. We now have rising emissions, slowing renewables investment and inflation once again being driven by soaring electricity costs. Australians deserve transparency not redactions, reform not rhetoric and a government that understands that affordability and reliability must come first if sustainability is to follow.