Competition and Consumer Amendment (Australian Energy Regulator Separation) Bill 2025

Senator AYRES (New South Wales—Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science) (19:19): I thought I might just say a few things for about 10 minutes; that was my plan. I do want to deal— Senator Brockman: Eleven minutes! Senator AYRES: We'll see how we go.

I do want to make a few comments about that remarkable contribution. Senator Roberts is very cross about the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Australian Energy Regulator Separation) Bill 2025. I think that this bill is an important piece of legislation.

It does some important work in terms of the evolving regulatory framework for electricity regulation. But that was a lot of elevated blood pressure at this time of night for this piece of legislation. I want to remind senators who are here in the chamber that I think we have 14 adjournment speeches to follow this.

I know you will all be sticking around for all of it, and no doubt Senator Roberts will be contributing there and making the same kind of contribution. But there were a few things in his contribution that I wanted to touch on before I turn to the substance of the bill. There was a pretty cute little line in there about the absence of the letter 'U' in Australian 'Labor'.

I say to Senator Roberts that the formation of the Australian Labor Party was foundational in Australian political history, and much of the story of Federation was wrapped up in that. The spelling of the 'Labor Party' in that context, driven so much by the Australian adoption of social democratic principles and the development of the Australian labour movement, says so much about Australian history in 1902 and 1912, and I really urge Senator Roberts to have a proper look at that.

I did find some areas of agreement, though, I have to say, with Senator Roberts. The moves towards the privatisation of our electricity system were championed largely, as he said, by former prime minister Howard but also, at the state level, largely by Liberal-National governments, but it wasn't isolated to them. Some elements within my own political party saw the short-term advantages of electricity privatisation, and I think we're seeing the cost of some of that now, not just in lost jobs in the electricity system but in the role of the state in electricity market provision.

There are some missed opportunities here, to say the least. I've fought against electricity privatisation my whole industrial life. I think I was right then and I'm right now, but, as they said at my kids' childcare centre, 'You get what you get and you don't get upset.' We have the market conditions that we have at the moment, and we've got to work our way through to modernise our electrical system so we have a modernised electricity network that's fit for purpose for modern Australian industry and modern Australian households, and that is what this government is determined to do.

Senator Roberts referred to the campaigns, if you want to call them that, that we're seeing emerge—led by characters in the coalition, not all of them but some of them; One Nation politicians; and other characters on the extremes of Australian politics—against electricity generation projects and transmission projects. A lot of it has some deeply suspicious and spurious claims, and much of it is identical to far-right extremist campaigns from overseas.

These characters can't even make their own campaigns in Australia. They use imported memes and imported ideas from some pretty malign actors, which are adopted uncritically to spread fear and division in rural and regional communities. I have to say that not too many sensible people engage in this stuff, but it's led by some of the nastiest elements of imported politics, and people should be very cautious about cut-and-paste memes that come from overseas making all sorts of wild and dishonest claims.

That's not where regional Australia is, I have to say. When you go to communities like the community I grew up in, in the New England area of New South Wales, local governments, communities and farmers are engaging with the challenges of hosting new generation on their properties and the economic opportunities that engages. They're sceptical, rightly, when new projects come to town and are demanding more from new projects and from transmission projects, and that's a good thing.

They are trying to make sure that they can extract the maximum industrial, energy, commercial and economic value for their communities, and they laugh about the kinds of behaviour and claims that are being made. They're amplified here in the parliament by Senator Roberts and by some of the other characters in the Liberal and National parties. Some of them utterly uncritically and some of them very cynically are attaching themselves to these bonkers campaigns.

I've watched them being amplified here in the parliament. I've watched them being amplified on 'Sky after dark'. But I tell you what, when you go to these regional communities, unless there's some sort of cookers convention going on, they don't have much support.

They don't have much support because they make claims that are utterly unsustainable and utterly laughable, like this harebrained campaign against offshore wind developments that we've seen off the New South Wales coast. These people, who have spent their whole political careers denigrating environmentalism, denigrating concern for threatened species and for whales, laughing at people who campaign—and there are many Australians in regional communities who care about the environment, absolutely—and mocking those people for 99 per cent of their political lives, are suddenly concerned about whales and funding billboards about whale health.

I mean, it is too silly for words. They make claims about these whales, which go up and down the east Australian coast. They are big units, these whales.

They make their way up and down the coast. They make their way up and down the Western Australian coast dodging bulk carriers, dodging container ships, moving their way around fishing trawlers. They make claims that these poor old whales are going to door themselves on a stationary wind tower.

It's too silly for words. It's as silly as a two-bob watch. Most of the people who make these claims cynically know it—they know it—but some of them get a bit 'red pilled' in the process and start to believe it.

Poor old Senator Canavan, 'Koala Canavan', on the weekend tried to claim that he was interested in koalas. Like a koala—here we go! Senator Roberts: A point of order: the speaker is denigrating a member of the Senate who is not here.

Senator Brockman: On the point of order: I think, correctly, we should always refer to members of this chamber appropriately. I don't think that that way of referring to Senator Canavan was appropriate, and I would ask Senator Ayres to withdraw it. Senator AYRES: I am very happy to withdraw it to assist the chamber.

But, like the koala in his story returning to its favourite tree, Senator Canavan is making all sorts of wild claims. And then we see the coalition, after the Morrison years, after all that failure, like a dog returning to its vomit, get back into the politics of net zero, back into the energy politics. Well, keep on going.

Debate interrupted.