Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of all answers to questions without notice asked by coalition senators today.

Something that I've been reflecting on recently is something that a lot of people tell me when I talk to them: that they would like their representatives in this place and in the House to actually answer their questions plainly—to answer them directly, without going around in circles. Today's answers to coalition questions, particularly in relation to energy prices and the BOM failure, reminded me of that. Whether people want to accept it or not, this government went to the last election with a promise of reducing electricity prices. There is no planet upon which anybody can stand and suggest that that has occurred. That was a failure of this government to deliver on an election promise of reducing energy prices. Most people have not seen a reduction in any energy prices at all. I would hasten to say that probably no-one has seen a reduction in energy prices, and not even of the $275 that the government promised. Instead, Australians are paying many, many hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars more. The fact that people are afraid during winter or worried in summer when it's hot to turn on their cooling or their heating, whichever is appropriate, is not okay. People shouldn't be worried about doing that in a country like Australia.

There is an urgent need for this government to address their failed energy policies, which are seeing prices continue to increase, which are seeing the cost-of-living burden for Australians continue to rise and which are making it harder for everyday Australians to pay their bills and do the things they need to do. Particularly, as we approach Christmas, the statistics that we see are really disturbing. Families are saying, 'We actually can't afford to do the things we used to do.' They can't afford to do that, because of the increased cost of their groceries, the increased cost of their insurances, the increased cost of their energy, the increased cost of their mortgages and the increased cost of their rent. We can't hide from the fact that this government has presided over the greatest fall in living standards in the OECD. That is a reality. The rising cost of energy is a core reason for that. This government has presided over excessive spending. Part of the reason that we have a problem with persistent inflation—and 'persistent inflation' is a term used by the Reserve Bank, not one that the opposition has created; it is one that has come from the Reserve Bank—is the excessive spending of this government. It's not to do with something that has happened overseas, and it's not inherited from the opposition, from when the opposition were in government; it's a direct result of the actions and inactions of this government. What has happened with the BOM website is a further example of that.

The questions to Senator Watt were really important because they go to the core of the problems that we have in our country today. Australians can't afford to pay their bills under a government that is presiding over an almost $100 million expenditure on a Bureau of Meteorology website that was estimated to have cost $4 million. I have seen in my life some things go over budget. I've worked in many different organisations both professionally and as a volunteer. I have seen things go over budget. I have never seen things go over budget from $4 million to almost $100 million. I've got the amount here. I think it's more than a 2,000 per cent increase. That is extraordinary. I don't know how anybody can justify that. I also don't know how it was allowed to ever happen in the first place. That is a question that this government must answer, not just in the isolation of this egregious case of wasting taxpayers' money but in what they have been doing since they were first elected to government, including the impacts that it's having on Australian taxpayers and the impacts that it's having on the budget of our country and our ability to deliver the infrastructure and everyday needs that we have across health and education and the breadth of our budget. This is a complete and utter failure of the management of the economy by this government.

Ellie Whiteaker (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of answers provided in question time. I'm just mindblown at the absolute hypocrisy from those opposite on energy and on energy prices. They are the party who had 23 energy policies. They are the party who, just last week, were led by their minority coalition partner and dropped their commitment to net zero—a commitment that was made under two former Liberal prime ministers and that was legislated under the former Liberal government. They are a party who took a $600 billion nuclear plan to the last election that was wholeheartedly, overwhelmingly rejected by the Australian people when they went to the ballot box in May.

They are the party that has no plan to increase energy supply in this country and no plan for more, cheaper energy for Australian households and businesses. They are the party who, during their time in government, oversaw 24 out of 28 coal-fired power stations either announce their closure or bring forward their closure date, yet they had no plan and took no action to fix that problem as it arose. They are the party that opposed energy bill credits that our government put in place to take pressure off Australian households. Their plan is to continue to rely on aging coal-fired power stations—infrastructure that the private sector will no longer invest in. That is not a plan to reduce the energy costs of Australian households, Australian businesses and Australian industry.

Our plan is a plan that is backed by Australians, backed by industry and in line with the rest of the world. We are investing in large-scale renewables in wind and solar, backed by gas, hydro and batteries. Our plan is about providing support for households in the uptake of solar and batteries both to reduce their reliance on the grid—to take pressure off the grid—and to make their energy bills cheaper over the long term. These are not plans that we've seen under those opposite, either when they were in government or now, when they sit on the opposition benches. But it is a plan that has been overwhelmingly supported by the Australian people, because they are voting with their feet. Four million Australians have solar panels on their roof. Since our battery rebates came into effect just a couple of months ago, 130,000-odd Australians have put a battery in their house. That is about real, long-term energy bill relief—taking pressure off the grid, reducing their reliance on the grid and making their energy bills cheaper over the long term.

Every single household across this country has benefited from our energy bill rebates, which have kept their power bills lower than they would otherwise have been. In my home state of Western Australia, thanks to partnership with the Cook Labor government, that has meant thousands and thousands of dollars off people's power bills, much of which has been opposed by those opposite.

What we are seeing from those opposite is absolute chaos. It is a denial of the science and it is a denial of the momentum that we are seeing around the globe, and they have no plan to bring energy prices down for Australian households. They have no plan to increase energy supply in our country. That is in stark contrast to our plan, which is to build Australia's future, to invest in the renewables rollout and to help households keep their energy bills low, not just now but well into the future.

This is, of course, just part of broader cost-of-living relief that our government is providing. It's not just in energy that we're making things cheaper. It's in cheaper medicines, it's in reducing HECS debts and it's in bringing inflation down, and it's only our government that is doing that work. (Time expired)

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to make a contribution to this motion to take note of answers given by government ministers to coalition questions during question time. What question time has again demonstrated to the Australian community is that you cannot believe a thing that this government says. When they get into a bit of a corner they revert to the old tactics: ramp up the rhetoric, start calling people names across the chamber and then deflect the blame to somebody else. It doesn't matter who they deflect the blame to; they're just not prepared to take responsibility for their own decisions and their own actions. You see it time and time again. Then they all trot out the talking points. They've read the BS in the talking points so many times that they actually believe it themselves. The fact that the assertions being made by government ministers and senators are not true doesn't seem to mean anything anymore in this place.

We started today with a conversation and a debate about respect in the chamber, and yet what do we get from government ministers across the chamber during question time? We get personal reflections. We get attacks on colleagues on this side of the chamber. Then, of course, Minister Watt—in something that probably only Minister Watt could do—tries to blame the Turnbull government for something that's happening under his watch now. It's as if the last three and a bit years didn't happen. What have the government been doing for the last three or so years while the Bureau of Meteorology has been developing its website? Have they been wandering around blindfolded? Have they been looking at what's going on? How did Minister Watt allow the BOM to suggest that a project that had cost $96 million had cost $4.1 million? He did acknowledge that he was upset about it, but it is just extraordinary that a project of this nature and of this importance to Australians, from a whole range of different perspectives, could be done so wrong. What does Minister Watt try to do? Blame the Turnbull government because they commissioned the project. So what has Labor been doing for the last three and a bit years while the project's been finalised? Who was it that checked up on the project before the website went live to see that it was providing the service that it needed to provide? How can that be the Turnbull government's fault? It is preposterous to suggest that this could be the Turnbull government's fault.

That is why you cannot believe what this government's saying. They do this all the time. It's their stock in trade: ramp up the rhetoric, blame somebody else and distribute the blame to somewhere—it doesn't matter where it goes. And of course, when it comes to the promises that they've made, it's as though they were never made, and they certainly can't be believed. We all remember the 97 times before the 2022 election when the now Prime Minister Albanese and his then shadow ministers promised a $275 reduction in Australians' power bills. What did they do? They spent billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to provide a rebate because they can't meet their promise. They promised the most transparent and open government, and yet they are the worst in history, to the frustration of this entire chamber. You cannot believe a word that this government says. They promised us cheaper housing. How's that going? They promised us a better cost of living, and yet Australians' cost of living is going backwards. On all of these promises that they made, Australians are coming to understand that they cannot believe them, and the government should do better.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on the responses in question time today. Firstly, in their contributions, those opposite talked about questions not being answered directly. You couldn't get any more direct answers to questions than those in question time today from our ministers. They directly answered the questions that were put to them. Unfortunately, the coalition just don't like the answers. The other thing that the coalition don't seem to like are facts. Facts matter. It is important that the coalition are reminded of their record when they were in government when they seek to lay blame at this government's feet for actions the coalition did or did not take—and when we get to energy prices we'll talk about 10 years of neglect in that sector. It matters, and they can't walk away from the decisions they made.

Then we go to the BOM website. Minister Watt has been on the record on so many occasions in the last few days about his expectations and what he has done in terms of the BOM website. I'm going to read some of his response to an interview he gave prior to question time. Why did the coalition ask the question about the BOM website when the answer was already out there? They'd have to go back to their tactics committee to work that one out. Minister Watt said, 'I'm not happy with how this has been managed.' You may have seen a few weeks ago, when the issue first arose around the issue with the website, that he got the acting CEO in for a meeting and said that it wasn't meeting his expectations or public expectations, and since that time they've made changes. He continued: 'We have now all learnt about the cost increases. I would just say the website change was always going to cost more than $4 million.' This actually began under the Turnbull government. I don't know why they're so sensitive over there. That is a fact. It was begun under the Turnbull government, and the first contracts for the new website were signed under the Morrison government in 2019. That's the reality. Not only did Minister Watt respond directly to the questions that were asked of him today by Senator Cadell; he has also been out in the public arena responding to the legitimate concerns of the community and asking the BOM to look deeply into this and come back on how this could have happened.

One of the other questions that was asked today was around energy. This is another area where the coalition will simply not look at their own record. The simple truth is—and the facts are—that the opposition had almost 10 years to put an energy policy in place, and they failed. They're still failing, actually. You only have to look at the complete chaos that's reigned during the last month. For a decade when they were in government, they lurched from slogan to slogan, without delivering a settled plan. They had 23 different policies which came and went. None of them stuck. None of them delivered certainty. None of them delivered investment. All the while, the system aged and the market moved. During their time in government, 24 out of 28 coal-fired power stations announced they were closing, and yet they did nothing to prepare the country for it. As the minister said in question time, power prices will always be lower under this government.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just a few years ago when I finished school—actually maybe it was a bit longer ago than that—I did an apprenticeship in electronic servicing. If I'd had a dollar for every time that someone brought in some equipment and said, 'I've replaced the fuse multiple times, but I still have the same problem,' it would have been a handy little bonus on top of the small salary I used to receive as an apprentice. People would just replace the fuse without actually dealing with the underlying problem. The reason why a fuse blows is that there's an oversupply of current going through the circuit—it's beyond the capacity of the circuit and therefore the fuse blows. This is what is going on right now when it comes to energy policy in this country. This government keeps doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

There is a root cause of the problem that is here, and that problem is that prices are going through the roof and people are seeing their energy bills go up time and again. We've seen a 40 per cent increase in people's electricity bills. The Labor Party might like to try to convince people that their own eyes are deceiving them when they're looking at their power bill and it's clear before them that it has gone up, but their own eyes do not tell a lie—people can see that the cost of energy has gone up. The reason this is occurring is that the blind ideology of this government, which has it continuing to go down a path of pursuing the so-called lowest cost of energy, is actually driving up the cost of energy. That's why people are seeing the result on their power bills. That's why we're seeing large industrial-scale projects under pressure. You only need to go to the front page of the West Australian newspaper site today to see that Lynas, a rare earths producer in the Goldfields, have said that they have an unreliable supply of energy and it is driving up their costs. We need rare earths. We've just signed a deal with the United States. These sorts of projects are at risk because of the high cost and unreliability of the energy grid. This pursuit of net zero, without reliability and with increased costs, is just like replacing that fuse time and time again. It just keeps blowing, and Australians are feeling the pressure of that every single day.

We have to get serious about addressing the high cost of energy and the unreliability that is now occurring in our electricity grid. It's not fair that Australians are facing these high costs, because they were promised, ahead of the previous election, that their power bills would in fact go down by $275. Of course, Australians are seeing that that has not occurred. They've not seen the promised lower cost of energy. This Labor government has spent $75 billion, and it's only delivered higher prices, stalled emissions and uncertainty for households. Industry in the regions is facing the pressure of this government's energy policies. It's proposed that, to reach their 2035 target, a further $530 billion in additional spending will be required. That is only going to drive up the cost. That's $50,000 per Australian household to meet the objectives of Labor's ideology.

What we need is reliable power. What we need is cheaper power. What we need is affordable power so that Australians can pay their way and make ends meet. Unfortunately, under this government, that is all out of control. We're seeing large industrial-scale projects—like the ones that we need out in the Goldfields, with this Lynas project—under pressure, under threat, because of the pursuit of this policy of net zero. What we need to see is some sensibility come into our energy policy, and that is what the coalition is offering. We're calling it quits when it comes to the pursuit of blind ideology. We need to pursue lowest-cost affordable and reliable energy and not cost Australians their livelihoods. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.