Opposition leader Peter Dutton has dubbed Labor’s first Budget a failure filled with broken promises in tackling the cost-of-living crisis.
Delivering his Budget reply speech, the first since he became Opposition leader, he argued the Budget released on Tuesday would do little to help Australians.
Budget forecasts have tipped electricity prices to rise 56 per cent and gas prices 44 per cent in the next 20 months.
The government is considering market intervention but late on Thursday a senior cabinet minister took a swipe at gas companies, which he said were “profiteering” and “completely deaf to public concern”.
Speaking in the parliament, Mr Dutton said the Budget adds to the cost-of-living pressures being experienced by Australians.
“Cost-of-living, power prices, taxes, interest rates, unemployment, and the deficit are going up, or will be going up,” he said.
“The same Budget papers confirmed that real wages are forecast to go down.
“Labor’s Budget was a missed opportunity to help you at a time when you need help.”
The Budget forecasted real wages were unlikely to grow for the next two years, while living costs looked set to remain high, fuelled in part by high energy prices.
Federal industry minister Ed Husic told the ABC companies were showing “greed on an industrial scale” by pushing prices up.
Labor is considering interventions to stop prices going even higher, something criticised by the head of gas company Santos Kevin Gallagher, who says it would “never work”.
Mr Husic said Santos was “deaf to reality”.
“Maybe they should get with the program and understand, as I’ve said previously – they can either be team Australia or team greed,” he said.
“There is a clear choice they should be making and, you know, if they need a hint as to which way they need to go, pick up the phone and give me a call.”
The Coalition has repeatedly said the government needed to focus on expanding supply of gas into the market.
Others have urged the government to consider targeted electricity rebates or taxes on high-earning energy companies.
Mr Dutton used his reply speech to reintroduce himself to the public and it comes as the Coalition begins the process of establishing the policies it will take to the next election.
“Six months ago, the Australian public heard the prime minister say he had a plan to help with your cost-of-living pressures, especially your electricity bills,” he said.
“On 97 occasions he promised your bill would go down by $275.
“In this Budget, instead of going down by $275 as promised, Labor’s plan will see your electricity bill go up by more than 50 per cent over the next two years.”
He also called for a debate about the use of nuclear energy in Australia.
“We want a sustainable and sensible pathway to reduce our emissions,” he said.
“But when the prime minister says that the sun and wind are free energy sources, your power bill tells a different story.
“It’s much more complicated than that. The technology doesn’t yet exist at the scale that is needed to store renewable energy for electricity to be reliable at night, or during peak periods.
“Firming-up means using coal, gas, hydro, hydrogen, nuclear or batteries as an energy source or to store power when renewables aren’t feeding the system.”
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Even $275 is bugger all ! winter quarter cost me $930. Gas and electricity in this country has become a disaster.
Plentiful, reliable and affordable power is the foundation of our standard of living.
Yet incredibly, the government is dismantling previous reliable power production and attempting to entirely replace it with unreliable, intermittent renewable power, in the name of climate change.
Plenty of commentators are now saying that climate change is an idealogical delusion with zero scientific basis.
When is this pretence going to end?
Who are these commentators and why aren’t you listening to the actual scientists?
The government is not dismantling the “reliable” power. The dismantling is being done by private companies, as they are at end of life an not commercially viable.