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representatives vote 2017-09-14#1
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2017-09-26 14:14:48
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Title
Motions — Leader of the Opposition- Motions - Leader of the Opposition - Speed things along
Description
<p class="speaker">Josh Frydenberg</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That this House condemns the Leader of the Opposition for deliberately misleading the Australian public on power prices.</p>- The majority voted in favour of a motion to speed things along. In parliamentary jargon, they voted to 'put the question', which means debate will stop and a vote will happen immediately.
<p>Let's start with the claim. On Tuesday, the Leader of the Opposition stated, 'The research shows that the average power bills for a Sydney household have gone up by nearly $1,000.' On the same day in parliament he said to the Prime Minister:</p><p class="italic">What about the $1,000 extra that Sydney householders are paying on his watch?</p><p>It was a claim he repeated in the House yesterday. Yesterday his shadow spokesman on energy, the member for Port Adelaide, said in the House:</p><p class="italic">Since this government came into office power bills have gone up by $1,000 for the average Sydney household. That figure is based on data from the government's own Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Commission, reported in <i>The Australian</i> newspaper.</p><p>But <i>The Australian</i> newspaper never reported such a figure. It was concocted by the Labor Party and the Leader of the Opposition and was designed to mislead the Australian people. And again Labor members followed their Leader of the Opposition, repeating this $1,000 false claim. The member for Parramatta, the member for Shortland, the member for Kingsford Smith, the member for Lindsay, the member for Werriwa, the member for Wills, the member for Cunningham, the member for Hunter and the member for Blaxland all repeated this false claim.</p><p>And then Labor's false claim was repeated and used in the media. Last night, in Andrew Probyn's package on the ABC News, this $1,000 false claim was repeated to hundreds of thousands of Australians. But let me tell the House that the Leader of the Opposition's $1,000 claim for an electricity price increase for the average Sydney household is false, is dishonest and is designed to deliberately mislead the Australian people. It has wrongly asserted data from Australia's independent Australian Energy Regulator and was designed to deceive the Australian people.</p><p>This is what the independent Australian Energy Regulator has said in response to the claims from those opposite: '</p><p class="italic">The Australian Energy Regulator has not published any data outlining the price increases claimed in the article. The price increases in the article are inconsistent with the data published by the Australian Energy Regulator.'</p><p>This data suggests that prices have gone down in Sydney by 2.3 per cent from the end of 2013 to July 2017. I table the advice from the Australian Energy Regulator. Similarly, the independent Australian Energy Market Commission has stated in response to these claims: 'The Australian Energy Market Commission's figures cannot be the basis of the estimates of price increases published in <i>The Australian</i> article on 10 July 2017.' I table the advice from the Australian Energy Market Commission, which conflicts with the claims made by those opposite.</p><p>There we have it in black and white. The Leader of the Opposition, his energy spokesman and a host of frontbench and backbench colleagues have used the good names of the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Commission, attributing to them data that never existed while cooking up on that side of the House a fake figure of a $1,000 increase in Sydney households designed to mislead the Australian people. I call on the Leader of the Opposition to come clean, to apologise to the Australian people and to come into this House and correct the record.</p><p>We have seen this all before, because the Leader of the Opposition has a pathological pattern of behaviour to deceive, to falsify and to mislead the Australian people. The Leader of the Opposition has a pathological pattern of behaviour to deceive, to falsify and to mislead the Australian people. It goes to the question of integrity, because the Leader of the Opposition is not fit to be Prime Minister of this country. He's not fit to be Prime Minister of the country. We all know about 'Mediscare'. Those opposite were prepared to deceive millions of Australian pensioners and the most vulnerable in our society with a lie, with a mistruth, with a false claim. If we hadn't exposed this $1,000 false claim from the Leader of the Opposition—</p> <p class="speaker">Opposition Members</p><p>Opposition members interjecting—</p> <p class="speaker">Steve Irons</p><p>I remind the member for Shortland that he's not in his seat. You're not in your seat. Nor is the member for Lyons or the member for Cowan.</p> <p class="speaker">Josh Frydenberg</p><p>who would know that millions of Australians may have gotten a text message attributed to the Australian Energy Regulator? It's just like what they did with the 'Mediscare' campaign.</p><p>The Leader of the Opposition's bad behaviour is not confined to 'Mediscare'. What about his bad behaviour with the workers of Clean Event? As a union boss, he sold out the workers to line the pockets of the unions. What about his efforts in getting $100,000 from the good workers of the unions and giving it to GetUp!? Money that came from the coal workers was given to GetUp! to close coal-fired power stations—</p> <p class="speaker">Steve Irons</p><p>Order! The minister will resume his seat. I call the Manager of Opposition Business.</p> <p class="speaker">Tony Burke</p><p>I will just make a point of order briefly, if I may. This particular resolution, a resolution on notice condemning a member of parliament by direct resolution and claiming deliberately misleading, is a resolution rarely moved. When it's moved, the relevance rules are relatively strict. The minister has now strayed a long way from the subject of the motion.</p> <p class="speaker">Steve Irons</p><p>I thank the Manager of Opposition Business. I call the minister. I have allowed him to continue.</p> <p class="speaker">Josh Frydenberg</p><p>The Leader of the Opposition has a pathological pattern of behaviour to deceive, to falsify and to mislead the Australian people.</p><p>We know that he has concocted this $1,000 figure, he has taken the good name of the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Commission and he has got the Labor members opposite to repeat this false claim and to mislead the Australian people. On the issue of rising energy prices, the public concern is genuine, but the Leader of the Opposition's concern is not genuine. When we came to government at the end of 2013, we inherited a mess. We inherited electricity prices that had increased by more than 100 per cent, and they had actually increased by more than that in Sydney. We immediately took action to abolish the carbon tax, and those opposite tried three times to stop us. But when the carbon tax was abolished, we saw the biggest single drop ever recorded, and we have the ACCC saying that Australian householders were, overall, $550 better off.</p><p>When we came to government, as I said to the House yesterday, the Australian Energy Regulator in their State of the energy market report shows that electricity bills for an average household in Sydney have varied from increasing by about $1 to falling by $473 in accordance with the latest data in May. Take, for example, Ausgrid: in 2013, their customers saw a 3.9 per cent increase; in 2014, they saw a 5.5 per cent decrease; in 2015, they saw a 6.6 per cent decrease; and, in 2016, they saw a 9.1 per cent increase. We know that Australian households are doing it tough. On 1 July this year, AGL increased average Sydney household bills by $296, Origin increased bills by $310 and EnergyAustralia increased bills by $320. The combined effect of these changes on the average Sydney household bill, since we came to office, means that the price for an average Sydney household varies from increasing by $321 to decreasing by $177. This is nowhere even close to the Labor Party's claim: a fabrication of $1,000.</p><p class="italic">Mr Brian Mitchell interjecting—</p> <p class="speaker">Steve Irons</p><p>Order! I remind the member for Lyons that he is out of his seat.</p> <p class="speaker">Josh Frydenberg</p><p>I table the AER's documentation indicating those numbers. We have taken action on a number of fronts to relieve the pressure on household power bills. The Prime Minister has taken action to provide more gas into the domestic market, action to rein in the power of the networks, action to get better deals for the retailers and action to keep existing coal-fired power stations going. These are all actions of a responsible government focused on affordable, reliable power. This contrasts with those opposite with a Leader of the Opposition who's not fit for government, a Leader of the Opposition who has misappropriated the good names of the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Commission and a Leader of the Opposition who has come into this place and made up a figure—a false figure—of a thousand-dollar increase for average household power prices. The member for Port Adelaide should be ashamed of himself because he has made up a number and misled the House. The Labor Party has misled the House. The Labor Party has not produced one valid document to assert its statement is correct.</p><p class="italic">Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—</p> <p class="speaker">Steve Irons</p><p>Order! The member for Hunter! The member for Hunter is defying the chair. Order!</p> <p class="speaker">Josh Frydenberg</p><p>I will end where I started. The Leader of the Opposition has concocted the number of a thousand-dollar increase. He has used the good name of the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Commission. There is now documentation on the record contradicting and conflicting with the claims made by the Labor Party. Only this side of the House is focused on a more affordable and reliable system, and only the Leader of the Opposition does not have the courage or the conviction to come into this House, to be honest with the Australian people, to correct the record and to explain why he made up this false figure to mislead and deceive the Australian people.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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