Affordable Energy Plan

25 Oct 2017 9:15 AMMichael Hart

Queensland Parliament Hansard Green

DATE: 24/10/2017

FILE: 24102017_000328_LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY_GREEN CHAMBER.DOCX

SUBJECT: Affordable Energy Plan

MEMBER: Mr HART

Affordable Energy Plan

Mr HART (Burleigh—LNP) (2.52 pm): They rolled the big guns out today! The member for Stretton and the member for Sunnybank are both trying to explain Labor’s failed affordable energy plan. I was very interested when the member for Stretton said, ‘Here is how it will work.’ I thought that finally someone is going to tell us how this thing works, because yesterday I listened carefully to the Premier and the Minister for Energy on the radio and nobody can explain any of this. There is no detail in this plan. This plan is a con job by a government desperate to cling to power. The inconvenient truth is that this is a scam. On the eve of an election the government has given us a ‘money-go-round’. They are taking government dividends which have already been spent. It is in the budget, so it has already been spent. They threw $770 million into their Powering Queensland Plan to subsidise what would have been a large increase in electricity prices and now there is a further $300 million—over $1 billion—which has not tackled the real issue with regard to the price of electricity in this state. This is about giving a subsidy of 96 cents a week to the people of Queensland five minutes before an election. I would like to contribute a dollar—and I will table that dollar for the benefit of the members over there—towards one person’s weekly subsidy.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Farmer): Member for Burleigh, that is not an item that is able to be tabled. I ask you to withdraw.

Mr HART: I withdraw. By the sound of what the Premier said yesterday, today she is meeting with the retail companies CEOs to give them a lecture. It would be interesting to see how many CEOs show up for that meeting, but you can imagine the conversation. I am sure the Premier is telling them that everything is their fault, because everything is always somebody else’s fault with this Labor Party. You can hear the retailers: ‘Hang on, Premier. You own 65 per cent of the generators in this state. You have gouged the people of Queensland. You have been using electricity as a hidden tax. You have raked in $410 million more in generation than was budgeted this year.’ That is what the retailers will be saying to the Premier right now as they have their meeting.

I thought I would have a look to see who has sold what in this state, because those of us on this side have not sold anything. Those opposite sold a number of things, including the retailers that Peter Beattie sold in 2006. They sold a lot of other things, including the Port of Brisbane, Queensland Rail and Queensland forestry. Interestingly, in 2006 when Peter Beattie sold the retail arm of Energex and Ergon they put aside $300 million for a number of things they said would be built with that money, including a dam on the Mary River. How did that go for you? That was $500 million down the drain. Then there was a dam on the upper reaches of the Logan River. That did not happen either. There was the raising of the weir at Eden Bann. That has not happened. Great plan, guys! The kicker is the Rookwood weir. In 2006 money was promised for the Rookwood weir. As the Deputy Leader of the Opposition said this morning, this government will not even accept the money that the federal government has put on the table to build Rookwood weir. This is a sham energy policy from a desperate government—

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