Senate debates

Thursday, 1 December 2022

Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers

Answers to Questions

3:08 pm

Photo of Matt O'SullivanMatt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked today.

The first one went to transparency, and then we had some questions about the cost of living, and I seek to cover off on all of those in taking note this afternoon. The first question was on transparency. What we've seen with this government is a pattern of a lack of transparency, yet we heard time and time again throughout the election campaign and in the lead-up to it that the hallmark of this government would be transparency, it would be open to scrutiny and it would have integrity. But we're seeing anything but that so far.

You only need to take a look at the inquiry that went into this fair work bill that the government is currently debating. There's a lack of transparency—a lack of scrutiny. They only allowed 22 days for stakeholders to present their concerns and their issues about the bill that is before this parliament—22 days to consider such a significant change to the Fair Work Act. This is absolutely outrageous. The government are not prepared to open themselves up to scrutiny—because if you did then you would find there were all sorts of holes, and that's what we're finding in the committee stage of that bill.

But here we have a situation where we have requested that details of diaries be revealed, be tabled, so that members of parliament can scrutinise whereabouts and with who various ministers are engaging. The Prime Minister has not provided his diary, so that the Australian people can have a look and so that this parliament can have a look at what is going on. This is very disappointing, and it's a very concerning precedent that's being set here. Even the leader of the government in this place is not making her diary available. I look forward to it being available. I've got no doubt that Senator Wong is engaging in some very important issues in her portfolio. Why not open it up? Why not fulfil the obligation that they have to be transparent and honest with the Australian people?

We asked some questions about the cost of living, and we had some—would you call them answers, colleagues? I'm not sure that they were really answers, because they were just ducking and weaving around the reality. We heard time and time again—over 90 times throughout the election campaign alone—that this government was going to tackle energy prices. They were going to in fact reduce the cost of energy by $275 for the Australian people. It was promised to the Australian people that that would happen, but it hasn't. What we're seeing is that Australians are going to be worse off under this government—in fact, $2,000 worse off by the time we get to Christmas.

In my question to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, I asked what the impact was going to be. Australians are buying their ham, their turkey and their bonbons and getting themselves ready for hosting a Christmas lunch with their family, which I'm sure they've been looking forward to for so long, because we know that last Christmas many families were apart and weren't able to get together. They're looking forward to getting together this Christmas. But what they're seeing when they go to the grocery store is that the cost of delivering Christmas this year has gone up, the cost of buying presents for the kids has gone up, because this government is not doing anything to tackle the cost-of-living crisis that is before us right now. Inflation is going up. Interest rates are going up. The cost of delivering Christmas is going up. I look forward to the responses of those opposite, who might be able to rebut what I'm saying—but there's not. There's nothing that they can say, there's nothing that they can point to that would demonstrate that they're actually doing something to address this cost-of-living crisis.

I want to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. I hope that you do get to celebrate and have a great time with your family, and I hope you do get to enjoy a lovely Christmas lunch with them, because I know many Australians last year didn't get to enjoy that. I hope they get that chance, even though it's costing them more.

3:13 pm

Photo of Catryna BilykCatryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Seriously, give the man a bucket and a hanky! Seriously? The crocodile tears are just beyond humour. It is beyond humour, because that side want to come in here and give us a lecture on transparency! Transparency? I'm still waiting to see Mr Joyce's report from when he was the envoy for whatever he was the envoy for, that he was paid enormous amounts of money for, that nobody has still been able to see. I'm still waiting to see the reports that you don't give us. And what else have we got? Let's talk about transparency from the other side. First of all, we've got the former Attorney-General. On that side, integrity—

Photo of Simon BirminghamSimon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | | Hansard source

You do know you won the election, don't you?

Photo of Catryna BilykCatryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I beg your pardon?

Photo of Simon BirminghamSimon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | | Hansard source

You're the government now.

Photo of Catryna BilykCatryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I do know we're the government. I know you lost the election. Do you know why you lost the election? Because people knew you were not up to the job. People knew that you didn't care about them. People knew you didn't care about the cost of living. The crocodile tears from over there, and we're spending hours in here because you won't support the industrial relations bill. You won't give low-paid workers a pay rise. You will not give the aged care workers a pay rise. You will not give the early childhood educators a pay rise. Your whole policy on pay rises was to keep wages low. And what do you have? Through you, Deputy President, I don't know if anyone in the gallery ever watched that show To the Manor Born. That's what we have got over there.

Photo of Andrew McLachlanAndrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Through me, Senator Bilyk, not the gallery.

Photo of Catryna BilykCatryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I did say through you.

Photo of Andrew McLachlanAndrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

I know, but you were talking to the gallery.

Photo of Catryna BilykCatryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Through you, Deputy President, I will say to those over there, you've watched too much To the Manor Born. You think you are to the manor born. You want to keep wages low. You want to keep people down. Don't come in here and tell us that people won't be able to afford Christmas. We know that because we're cleaning up 10 years of your mess. Ten years of you guys deliberately keeping wages lower. Ten years of you denying low-paid workers an increase. Do you think people are fooled by that? I have early childhood educators in my office, or in my office in Hobart, probably at least twice a month. And I'll tell you, they do not like you guys. I'm quite happy for them not to like you guys. They know that you are blocking this wage rise for them. They know that it is you that are trying to hold Australia back.

I've got less than two minutes left and I do want to say something nice at the end. You are the guys that had colour coded spreadsheets. Where is the transparency in that? Don't come in here and talk complete rubbish. People outside this building know you're talking rubbish. They know that it's just a ploy to try and cover up because you're all in denial over there. I don't know how many times—I don't know why you don't put your hands up like this every time someone says, 'Wasn't our fault. We don't have to take responsibility because now you're the government.' Guess what? You spent 10 years buggering up the community, buggering up Australia.

Photo of Andrew McLachlanAndrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Senator Bilyk, please don't use that term. I find it offensive.

Photo of Catryna BilykCatryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I'm sorry, Deputy President. I withdraw that. I apologise wholeheartedly. You spent 10 years screwing the people of Australia—

Photo of Andrew McLachlanAndrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

I'm not sure that's much better.

Photo of Catryna BilykCatryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Come on! I've heard all sorts of things in this building.

Photo of Andrew McLachlanAndrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Senator Henderson, I'm well aware. I can look after myself, thank you.

Photo of Catryna BilykCatryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Oh, for heaven's sake.

Photo of Sarah HendersonSarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | | Hansard source

I would ask the senator opposite to withdraw that really most offensive word.

Photo of Catryna BilykCatryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I did withdraw it.

Photo of Peter Whish-WilsonPeter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

On a point of order, Chair. I can think of much worse descriptors than the one the senator used. I think it was entirely in context.

Photo of Andrew McLachlanAndrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

We all haven't lived as worldly lives as you, Senator Whish-Wilson.

Photo of Catryna BilykCatryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I'm happy to withdraw everything that was offensive to the people on that side. I'd hate to offend you. You've offended the people of Australia for the last nine years. But if I can't say that, fine, I'm happy to take the ruling from the Deputy President. We have been working hard in the past six months that we've been in government, and what have we been doing? Do you want to hear what we've done? Let me start. We've been building a modern economy. We're not living in the 1950s, like those on that side want to. We have been protecting the vulnerable. We have been rebuilding our international relationships, because we know what happened to international relationships from your side.

3:19 pm

Photo of Claire ChandlerClaire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | | Hansard source

To paraphrase a great film from the early noughties, why are you so obsessed with us? All we have heard today from those in the government is their own views on what happened when we were in government. There weren't many constructive ideas at all coming from members of the government today. I think that's really disappointing. We are seven months into this government now, into this new parliament, and the broken promises are starting to stack up. The problems are out there. Australians are under the pump. We have a government that promised one thing in May, and, at best, they do something entirely different, and, at worst, they don't even address the problem to start with.

During the election campaign, and while the now government was in opposition, Labor promised on multiple occasions that they would fix the rising cost of living. They said they had a plan. They promised that they would reduce inflation. They promised that they would help Australians get household budgets under control. They promised that the average Australian could expect to see a $275 reduction in their power bills. And they promised that they would be a transparent and accountable government. It all sounded so easy, and they promised an easy fix. But it turns out that governing the country isn't as easy as some of those opposite expected. Maybe that's why they come into this place and, instead of talking about what they should be doing, they just talk about their perceived issues with the previous government.

Right now, under Anthony Albanese and Labor, we have an economy with high inflation, rapidly rising interest rates and skyrocketing costs of living. But their dismal economic management and failure to deliver what they promised doesn't stop there. Like I said, Labor have also abandoned their promise to reduce household electricity prices for Australians, a promise which they said would save the average Australian $275 on their power bill.

Photo of Paul ScarrPaul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

How many times did they say it?

Photo of Simon BirminghamSimon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | | Hansard source

Ninety-seven.

Photo of Claire ChandlerClaire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Birmingham and Senator Scarr, for the interjections there. This late in a sitting week I didn't have the number quite front of mind. But the number I did have front of mind is 275, because that's how many dollars they said your electricity bill was going to go down by. Instead of making savings for households, the government has been forced to make an embarrassing admission that, over the next two years, Australians can expect to see electricity prices go up by 56 per cent. People voted for Mr Albanese and Labor based off this promise. The question is: what is Labor going to do about it? The fact is: they do not have a plan. That is why we saw this behaviour from the government today. They will talk as much as they like about the last nine years and their various views on our government, but, six months in, they can't focus on the issues that are important to Australians.

Not even Labor state governments believe that the Albanese government has a plan that's going to work, let alone a plan that's going to deliver that $275 promise. I was looking through the Financial Review yesterday and I read that the South Australian government was appealing to the federal energy minister not to do anything stupid. Well, it's a bit late for that. Most people would say that promising every Australian household that their power bills would go down by hundreds of dollars, to win an election, and then announcing in your first budget that bills will actually be going up by hundreds of dollars is a fairly stupid thing to do. The Albanese government's plan to put a cap on gas prices faces a new roadblock, with the South Australian government joining industry warnings that it could deter investment in new gas supply developments. That was the report in the Fin yesterday. This came on the same day that the Queensland Labor government told the Albanese government to keep its hands off their generators. Not even Labor governments trust other Labor governments to bring down power prices.

The dishonesty that was on display by the Labor Party earlier this year when they promised Australians they would lower the cost of living is extraordinary. When they promised Australians they'd get a $275 cut to their power bills, millions of people believed them. They believed them when they said that they were going to be a government that was about transparency and accountability, and yet this week, in this place, they tried to take days out of our Senate estimates sitting schedule for next year. You can't be much less interested in transparency and accountability than that—taking away the ability of this chamber to scrutinise the decisions of government. Instead of a $275 cut, Labor brought out a budget promising Australian households a 56 per cent hike to their power bills, and now we are seeing Labor state governments fighting with the federal government about these very same issues. It's not good enough. Six months in, it's a pretty disappointing result for the government.

3:24 pm

Photo of Louise PrattLouise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Well, the opposition's lack of transparency has followed them right into opposition and into this question time. They failed to nail the government at all when they raised these issues, because we have been very fair and transparent in our commitments to the Australian people. But if we look even at how the opposition asked their questions today, when Senator Cadell said to Senator Wong, 'I refer to your secret modelling that demonstrates that there will be coalmining closures as a result of your policies', then lo and behold, what do we find? Those very coalmines were forecast to close and their closure announced under the last government. So, far from being attributable to the Labor Party's policy commitments and indeed the commitments we have made to the Australian people, those job losses were forecast under the opposition's policy settings from when they were in government—the opposition's complete lack, frankly, of policy settings, as we've heard many times in this place. We saw under the last government some 22 energy policies in the time they were in government.

When we talk about our commitment to preventing job losses on the road to net zero we're serious about it. That's why we do this modelling—so we can see the impact of our policies on local employment markets and so we can work out where to stimulate in order to mitigate any changes in those local job markets in order to prevent those job losses. We've also had from those opposite today a debate about cost of living. Well, one of the key contributors to cost of living in this nation has of course been electricity prices, gas prices, things you didn't do anything about in your absolute lack of policy clarity on those questions—again, a mess that we in government are now left to clean up.

Those opposite like to lambaste us for our reduction target for emissions, and we've talked about the Hunter and other coalmining precincts. Well, we're proud to be a government that is currently working with the government of New South Wales, a Liberal government. They have a reduction target to get to a 50 per cent reduction by 2030. Are you blaming them for this landscape? Are you making accusations of them that attributes job losses to them? Well, no, because we know that these reduction policies are both good for our environment and good for the economy. They're not easy transitions to make. They have complex adjustments for economies and communities that we need to be smart and organised about. But the economic modelling and indeed the historical record, when you look at things like the short time that we had the carbon reduction scheme in place, or if you look at the success of existing renewable energy technologies that are widely used in Australia and their costings, demonstrate that our modelling and our commitments absolutely stack up.

We are a government that wants to look after workers, because we care about the cost of living. We are here today in this chamber spending most of the day debating industrial relations laws that will empower workers and workplaces to work with their employers to improve productivity and increase wages and conditions where they're deserved.

3:29 pm

Photo of Matthew CanavanMatthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

It has only been four weeks since the Labor government's first budget and that budget wasn't so much about their own figures but it had a shocking impact on the budgets of average Australian families. In that budget it was revealed that energy prices for Australian families in the next two years are set to skyrocket by 56 per cent. There has been massive community outrage at this, especially given that only six months before the government had promised to actually cut people's power bills by $275.

Since then, in the past four weeks, the government has flown more kites than you'd see on a windy beach. Every day there is a new kite being flown about what they're going to do about energy prices. This is despite them saying that they had planned six months ago to actually deal with them. I've only just been speaking to some major energy companies this morning, here in this place, and they're shaking their heads. They're shaking their heads at this government because they have no idea what they're going to do. Every day, basically, they wake up, they read the paper and they read about the latest battles that are going on with this divided government—this government with no direction—about how they're going to get people's energy bills down.

I think it's important to go through the absolute rabble that this government has been over the past month. On 28 October 2022 on the New Daily website there was a story which said, 'Labor refuses to rule out gas export cap'. It said this:

Former competition watchdog boss Rod Sims has suggested the government threaten gas providers with export limits to try to lower Australian prices.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen didn't rule out such as drastic move when asked about it on Friday morning.

So that's on the table. They have no idea if there's going to be a gas export cap and we still don't know.

Then on 26 October, the Australian reported in a headline, 'Windfall levy and changes to GST ruled out':

Jim Chalmers has ruled out changes to the GST or hitting gas exporters with a windfall profits tax …

Only about two weeks later after the Treasurer, nonetheless, had ruled out a windfall profits tax, the Australian reported on its front page, on 11 November, under the headline 'Labor risks new row with miners over coal and gas tax', that Anthony Albanese had not ruled out a new tax on gas and coal to help ease energy prices for households and businesses, and had said that the government is 'working through the issue'. I wonder if Mr Albanese had spoken to his Treasurer, who had ruled out such a tax just two weeks before? What the hell is going on with this government? Why can't they keep things in order? We are talking about extremely serious matters which they are messing around with because they have no idea what they're doing.

A few weeks on, by 29 November, there was a story in the Australian where they had come up with a new idea, 'Anthony Albanese's fix for electricity bills: direct subsidies for homes, businesses'. This was the third energy plan in just a few weeks. It was floated this week. Also, on the same day—on the very same day—the ABC reported that the government was to cap wholesale gas prices as part of a market intervention to lower power prices. So that was a record: they had two energy policies on the same day, which were briefed out to different newspapers. No-one has any idea what they're doing, let alone themselves. They have no idea what they're doing here. They made promises; in the words of Maverick, they tried to cash cheques that their body couldn't keep six months ago at the election. They said they could cut our power bills by $275, but when they got to government they had no idea how to do this. Instead, we're facing skyrocketing power bills ahead of Christmas this year.

Well, once we leave this place, this government have to get their act together because the Australian people rely on it. They need to get some consistency into their energy policies, not this rabble that's going on and playing out in our nation's newspapers. They need to talk to these energy producers, they need to talk to the industrial customers and, most of all, they need to talk to the Australian people—and none of these weasel words, this corporatese that they've been using and which was said again by their leader today. He said that they're going to transition workers to new jobs. That means you're going to lose your job. People know that. When they hear the word 'transition' that means, 'I'm going to lose my job.'

And if that's what you mean then you should just say it. It's a lot more trustworthy when you say that, because when you use words like 'transition', you sound like a second-rate HR manager at a large business. You sound like the character from the Dilbert cartoon, Catbert. You're all a bunch of Catberts over there when you use words like 'transition' instead of speaking plainly to the Australian people. If I know anything about coal miners in this country, they don't take kindly to the rubbish and the BS that sometimes comes from this other mob. Just speak the truth to us and be honest.

Question agreed to.