Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

We hear this. We hear the interjection. I'll take that interjection. That's why we vote no—because, when we hear dumb ideas for solutions to problems that they identify, we have to say no. We hear about the HAFF and the delay that this side and the Greens put on the HAFF. They delayed all this happening. We've had more than a year since that happened and billions of dollars, and it's built, what, 15 homes in New South Wales? Billions of dollars for 15 homes, not the 11,000—that's the 'can't'. That's the 'haven't'. Let's get down to this. Great ideas, rubbish execution—can't, haven't, won't, can't. This is what we get to with this side of government. That's why we come here.

But let's go further than that. Let's look further. When we get down to the axe, here we go—he cuts, you pay, because we can't cut public servants, unless we're the government, in which case we can cut $5.6 billion worth of public servants out of the economy by reprioritising. Reprioritising people out of jobs is not cutting, apparently. That is something else. This is what we got there. We hear the line 'fee-free apprentices'. Why didn't we support that? There are 100,000 less apprentices in the market now than when you took government. So fee-free TAFE—great, less apprentices in the market.

We hear, 'We're going out there on social safety—the under-16 social safety net.' It's a great idea, but we look at the policy that is to come in just next week. Will it work? No. We're not taking account of VPNs. We're not taking account of search engines that allow blurred images to come up. We're not doing enough of these things—all good things that we have to address but we don't.

Let's get to emissions reduction. What has this government done in the 3½ years since they've been there? Spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, not government money; put up energy bills, on average, about a thousand bucks a year; and had no emissions reduction. Not one iota of emissions reduction has been measured. So they've spent billions, cost you thousands and reduced no emissions. That takes a certain level of incompetence to be able to achieve. I'm not the greatest person ever; far from it. But even I couldn't achieve that level of incompetence, I don't think. That is really striving. That's hitting for the bridges. That's the moonshot of incompetence that these people have achieved—billions of dollars, thousands of dollars, no change. I might try harder when we go down there.

And we hear this 'cheapest form of energy'. It's a great line, but I do note that the language changed. 'Cheapest form of new energy' is now the phrase we use. We've had to modify that. There's a little asterisk in the corner now. Why? Because we see out there our metal producers, such as Tomago Aluminium, where I am, who get to access this 'cheapest form of'—asterisk—'new energy' out there, need billions of dollars of bailouts. They need billions of dollars to use the cheapest energy there is! How does that work? How do we need to bail out companies and taxpayers with energy rebates for using the cheapest energy there is? Once again, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I don't understand why we need to bail people out and give people rebates for using the cheapest energy that exists. It just doesn't make sense.

What we're seeing is great identification of issues: 'Let's pass a bill; let's have a crack at this side for not voting for it.' But why aren't we voting for it? Because they're rubbish solutions. It's as if I've got a flat tyre on my car and I take it and get the engine tuned up. That's what these people are doing here. It doesn't fix the problem. It's adjacent to the problem, but it doesn't fix the problem. We see this right across every portfolio, on every solution. We sit there and we say, 'Why don't you bring things to it?' and all we get accused of is voting against this legislation. You can't have a crack at us for identifying the incompetence. It's what we're here to do. What do you think it takes, ladies and gentlemen in the gallery? How much incompetence do you think it takes for the Greens and the Nationals to vote together to identify this? It doesn't happen very often that we see eye to eye, but, when we block, it's because we jointly see that.

The previous speaker raised immigration and the dog whistling that occurs in response to that. Immigration happens when you bring in all these people and you don't build the services, the hospitals, the houses or the roads. It causes problems for Australians who are already here when this government doesn't do the work to make sure that everyday Australians aren't put under housing pressure and cost pressure and can get into hospitals. But then this is put on the immigrant communities that come here for the right reasons—to help make a better Australia. Because the government can't do the basics, those communities suffer the consequences of this debate. That is not good enough.

Australia deserves a competent, better government, not just one that gets the slogans right. This is why we see Prime Minister Albanese have so many people in his comms team and so few people in his policy team. It is coming through all of the time. That is why there is the new job for Minister Bowen going around the world, telling everyone else how to do it, because we haven't just wrecked it. We can wreck the whole world this way. We don't have to just wreck Australia's energy policy; we can bring down the whole world if we try hard enough and get in behind this government. So I urge all of us to let Minister Bowen get out there and really hurt the rest of the world so we're on an equal basis again. Let's get down there, where Australia's competitiveness has gone. Living standards are now down to 2011 levels. People in here, people listening at home on what used to be called the wireless—I haven't heard it called the wireless for a very long time, but let's call it the wireless for today—and people driving in their cars are having the living standards of 2011 because their costs have gone up and their wages have gone down, relatively, since this.

That is why, when we were looking at our energy policy—when we were looking at different things and at every policy—we went through our three word slogan. Here it comes: cheaper, better, fairer. Everything must be those things if we are going to look for it.

It was coming. On the other side, they knew it was coming. They wanted it. They love it too. In everything they want to do, they should be living by those words: cheaper, better and fairer. If we are not here trying to make Australian policies those things, if we are looking at energy—and let's go back to this thing. Electricity is up 39 per cent and gas is up 43 per cent since they've been here. They are the real numbers when you go forward. When you look at the $1,000 extra you are paying on your bill every year, it is because we are out there with the cheapest form of new—remember that aspect—energy, not the cheapest form of existing energy. This is the way they're going forward on this. They're even being careful with that.

We talk about the emissions cuts that Australia has done. Let's be real here. Australia has reduced emissions compared to 2005 levels, under the Paris Agreement, by 28 per cent. That is double the average for OECD nations.