State Development Bill 2025 (Continued)
Second reading
resumed from an earlier stage of the sitting
The President: I give the call to Hon Dr Steve Thomas. I did know his name; he was making movements that might have been—I am not amused!
Hon Dr Steve Thomas (5:06 pm): He may have been testing his luck, which would not be the first time in this chamber!
Honourable members, I probably started my contribution to the State Development Bill 2025 by saying that the opposition will be assisting the minister with the passage of this legislation. The minister may not have got that impression from my first 20 minutes, but we will be assisting the minister with the passage of this legislation to give the government its seventh or eighth opportunity to streamline approvals processes in Western Australia. Before we were so rudely interrupted by question time, members will remember that I had been through a number of the improvements in approvals to date. That is the machinery-of-government changes; the Streamline WA failure; the significant development pathways debacle; the planning-during-COVID repetition; and the fast-tracking of mining, an obvious incompletion; but there are still a few to go. Members would not believe this, but there are a still a few to go. I want to jump to the next plan—strategic industrial areas, announced a couple of years ago. I will deal with strategic industrial areas in a little more detail in a while, but strategic industrial areas was the next attempt to deliver better outcomes, particularly in relation to industry and development. The strategic industrial areas website on wa.gov.au says:
Strategic industrial areas are designed for use by strategic and heavy industries that generate large investment, employment and value of production for Western Australia.
That sounds remarkably familiar. If members want a bit more information, guess where they can go? They can go to the DevelopmentWA website. We did not actually go into detail with DevelopmentWA, because it is a merger of departments, which is a part of planning, which was supposed to deliver streamlining of approvals as well. That is not one of the seven or eight attempts the government had made to improve things. It is not one of the seven or eight failures to date, but it is part of the argument and a part of the process. The next bit was the government introducing strategic industrial areas. In a similar timeframe, the government also put in place Infrastructure Western Australia. Infrastructure Western Australia is interesting, because its job is to facilitate infrastructure delivery for the betterment of this state. If we do not count DevelopmentWA, which would have been the seventh, Infrastructure Western Australia is the sixth attempt of this government—bear in mind it is eight years old—to streamline approvals processes in Western Australia. It is its sixth go at it. How is it working? It is laughable. I should be doing comedy routine here just for the sheer amusement of honourable members. It is laughable. That is not to say that Infrastructure Australia is any better in its processes. Here is something really funny. I like a good joke. That is why I will talk about Infrastructure Australia. Infrastructure Australia put together a list of highly important infrastructure projects across the entire country. This was supposed to be apolitical. Infrastructure Australia and Infrastructure WA were put in place, "in theory"—Hansard cannot show the inverted commas here—to depoliticise the process. That is why they were put in place. What happened? Infrastructure Australia got put into place to advise us where infrastructure needs to go to develop the best outcomes for the people of Australia—absolutely. That worked really well until there was a change of government. Do members know what happened to the Infrastructure Australia infrastructure list when there was a change of government? All of the highest priority infrastructure projects got shifted down and a whole new set got put in their place. Do you know why? It is because the incoming government did not like the projects of the previous government. This is the body that is supposed to be apolitical, but, of course, it is not, and that is part of the problem. When we plan for infrastructure, we should plan 20 years down the track, not two years down the track, but the political cycle is three or four years. Infrastructure Australia changed its recommendations based on the politics of the government of the day. Do you know what? In my view, Infrastructure WA has equally been a failure because it has not delivered a plan for infrastructure that identifies where everything needs to go and it has not facilitated infrastructure. Do you know how I can prove this? We are sitting here today debating the government's seventh attempt to streamline approvals and put appropriate infrastructure in place—its seventh attempt! If there is a reason that the opposition is assisting the government to pass this legislation, it is that maybe, just maybe, one of the seven to 10 attempts the Labor Party might make in its tenure in government might be successful, and we would hate this to be the one that did not get up and was not successful because we did not support it. There you go. If we did not support it, it possibly would not get up. This might be the one that the government rolls the dice on and actually delivers something. The problem the government has is its failure upon failure to date—compounding failure upon compounding failure. Let us hope this is better. Infrastructure Australia was no better than any of its federal predecessors before that process. Infrastructure Western Australia has been no better.
I will diverge for a minute because this is a good segue into the federal process. What terrifies me the most about what used to be a very cooperative form of federalism in Australia is the contempt that the federal Parliament and governments of both sides have held for the states for a very long time. We used to believe. I remember strong Liberals in debate talking about cooperative federalism. It is actually how it is supposed to work. I have to say that it is hard to see a more dysfunctional version of Parliament, but also federalism, than in the debates on the reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPCB act) last week. I have consistently heard arguments that the Labor Party and the Greens did a dirty deal behind the scenes. I have to say, really, what did anyone expect? It is really difficult to complain about a deal being done on the playing field if you are not on the playing field. I think there was an opportunity to make that legislation better, and I would have preferred all of the conservative parts of federal politics to negotiate with the Labor Party to get a better outcome for Western Australia in particular. I think that the outcome we have is incredibly difficult and bad. I think it is bad for the state of Western Australia.
I will say this: cooperative federalism appears to be on its way out, if it is not already dead. This is a little aside. I will ask for a bit of leeway on this because I find it very interesting. The federal Constitution delineates the powers of the state and the Commonwealth. I get this all the time. I get told when there is a conflict between federal and state legislation, the federal legislation is predominant, that is true, that is in the Constitution—I understand that. But, interestingly, I recommend members browse over section 51 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act. It is a bit wordy, so people do not often read it. Section 51 starts like this:
The Parliament shall,—
That is the federal Parliament:
subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:—
Then there is a whole page and half of lists of things, up to section 51(xxxix), of things that the federal Parliament can make legislation. Interesting, there are a few things absent from that. I thought the last state and federal elections were interesting because there is not the provision or distribution of energy. It is not constitutionally attached to the Commonwealth Parliament, in the same way that the management of land or waters within a three nautical mile limit, which is about five kilometres off the coast, is attached to the Commonwealth. There are lots of things that are not attached to the Commonwealth for which the Commonwealth seems, in my view, to have no problem passing legislation on. There seems to be a never-ending process of the Commonwealth seeming perfectly happy to extend itself into areas that should be part of the state. I get that many of our Commonwealth Parliaments, governments and members have no problem undermining the role of the state. I get that. The more power they can shift to Canberra, the better they like it. I get that, too. I just do not think it is good for the state of Western Australia. I am actually certain that the more decisions are made 4,000 kilometres east of us, the worse outcomes we get in Western Australia, and the EPCB act, in my view, is no exception. The EPCB act is a bit like the Corporations Act in federal Parliament in that a million things get put under the Corporations Act. The federal government wants to take control of almost everything—almost everything is delivered by a corporation, and this is how we undermine cooperative federalism. The EPCB act is a way for the federal government and Parliament to undermine the independence of state Parliaments and governments. Frankly, I think that is a dreadful shame and it is to the detriment of our state. I would have much preferred an outcome that dealt with the needs of the state of Western Australia, and if it had taken negotiation with the Labor Party federally to do so, to be honest, that is what I would have done. There are significant questions now about the federal EPCB act, and probably the best way to demonstrate that is in a couple of quotes from the media. I might just quickly read a couple of those, given I have the opportunity. This is a quote from an article in The Australian newspaper of Friday 28 November. It had a leader on page 1. This quote was included in this story. I should probably name the journalist, Geoff Chambers, just in case there are any trademark issues. He said:
Senior Labor figures are privately celebrating the native forestry clampdown and exclusion of coal and gas projects from fast-tracked approvals.
They say the final deal, which retains significant powers for an independent Environment Protection Agency, is close to what Albanese’s Left-faction had wanted from the outset.
Coalition figures who thought they could play chicken with Albanese and force him to delay EPBC reforms until next year were wildly wrong.
I think the federal government did get a lot of what was in the original legislation. The original legislation was incredibly problematic, so much so that the Premier of Western Australia actively campaigned against it, quite rightly; he should have done that because it was going to be to the detriment of Western Australia. It was to be to the detriment of our state. Good on the government for doing that, but ultimately the deal that has been struck now is, according to senior Labor figures, effectively the deal he campaigned against. Basically, Western Australia got dudded by the deal, but it was dudded even more so by the removal of the independent authority of Western Australia, which I think, when you get down to it, is actually far more significant.
I do not like a number of things about the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. I think the removal of gas projects is immensely problematic, the lack of certainty around the definition of unacceptable impacts will be potentially disastrous to this state and the net gain test still needs to be fleshed out. I do not understand how the net gain test is going to interact with the state offsets policy, for example. Will the government have to double up? I am sure that there are going to be enormous problems with that. The national environmental standards will be problematic and this thing called the "no regression principle" in regulations might just cause a few issues as well. There are massive issues in that piece of federal legislation and it would be good to stand up and be counted on that. Ultimately we had to make the legislation better, but I think the legislation is significantly worse.
The opposition at a state level is not about to allow the government to drift towards backing this legislation, or worse, if we can help it. I understand it is different legislation, in that the EPBC act started as a further impost on cooperative federalism and states' rights impinging upon things like forestry, which has always been managed by the state. Those opposed to forestry see an opportunity, through the EPBC act, to further undermine forestry. I get it. I understand that putting more handbrakes and hurdles in multiple levels of legislation will make it more difficult for any industry or any project. I understand that. I get that. I am simply opposed to it. I am glad to see that, in my view, the legislation before the house today does not do that. I think that the legislation tries to go in the right direction, but I can only urge the minister to have the government work on the bilateral agreements as a matter of priority. There is no guarantee that the bilateral agreements are actually going to deliver any beneficial outcomes for Western Australia, but it might just be the last hope we have of holding back a federal government, and in particular a federal bureaucracy, intent on making life difficult and empowering itself.
I think that is the secret. People think that, you know, we are the opposition and those on the other side are the enemy and vice versa; they are in government and the opposition is the enemy. As characters in Yes Minister always said, "The opposition's not the opposition. It's only the government in waiting. The civil service is the opposition in residence." In many cases that is absolutely the case. We get frightened about taking on the public service in Western Australia and in Australia because they give us advice. We elect people who do not necessarily have a big knowledge of an area, and so that group of bureaucrats who have empowered themselves and got to the top have no interest in divesting themselves of any of that power for the streamlining of approvals or boosting the economy. They have created positions of power and they want to keep that power. I know this is the case with the minister's government because it attempted to deal with the Morrison government on this exact issue of streamlining state and federal approvals—not necessarily having a complete handover of approvals but at the very least shared information, concurrent approvals and concurrent decision-making—but the problem was that the federal department of environment basically did not want to hand over any of its control or any of its power. It had developed a fiefdom and did not want to pass on any of that.
That is how bureaucracy works. We know that it makes it very difficult to get anything done. Surely members get complaints all the time about dealing with bureaucratic processes and dealing with government departments. It is because of the empires that have been built there. It is funny that, although we try to make things better, it is easy to be derogatory about members of Parliament. I understand that we are an easy target. It is a bit like when we have an argument with the legal system; they are always right and we are always wrong. It is a bit like arguing with my wife perhaps! But, you know, there you go; we have learned that message. We get derided for standing up on some of these things, but it is time to stand up. It is time for us to say that economic development matters to our children's future and development is not the enemy of the future; it is an essential part of the future. I think the EPBC act is a massive failure on that and we are going to be suffering from that for some time to come.
I am going run out of time, Deputy President. There are many other things I really wanted to talk about in relation to this bill, but I am going to have to spend some time just working through the process of the bill et cetera. The minister's second reading speech is really good. This is the second paragraph:
To leverage our state's unique position and ensure that Western Australia remains competitive in a rapidly changing global economy, this government has committed to investing in new infrastructure and streamlining Western Australia's regulatory and approval systems. We have already invested in additional resourcing and delivered meaningful reforms, including amendments to the Environmental Protection Act 1986 to accelerate major job-creating project …
How effective has that been? We are back here doing it again. The speech continues:
… amendments to the Planning and Development Act 2005 to streamline processes and cut unnecessary red tape—
How effective has that been? We are still back here trying to do it all over again. I love this one:
… establishment of the Coordinator General and a centralised approvals reform team to improve coordination and collaboration across regulatory agencies and ensure alignment with government priorities.
Apparently, the government is already doing that. If members read the second reading speech, they will see that stuff is already being achieved. Can we all go home now? I am not sure why we have turned up, because apparently it is all going very well, thank you very much. It is absolutely astounding.
Let us run through just some of the things that the bill will designate. I go to the provisions of the bill. In the middle of that page, the minister says:
Firstly, I will define a priority project.
I do not think the minister did, but anyway. It continues:
This is a project that is significant to the state because of the job opportunities, economic benefits or social benefits it provides. This bill allows for the designation of a project as a priority project, elevating, as I said previously, the level of coordination and oversight it receives.
But it does not define what that is. It just says, "We think it is an important project." The initial part of the speech states that significant progress has been made and lists what the government wants to do. One of them is to get out of coal-fired power generation faster than any other state. I am not sure that we can count Tasmania; maybe it should have had "mainland state", but anyway. The reality is that, based on our energy model, that is going to happen. My point is that the government is happy to choose winners and losers as a part of the process. It is happy to say, "We want to invest in this sort of industry but not that sort of industry." It just cannot get to the point of delivering and defining how it is going to do that. The speech continues:
When a project is designated as a priority project, it gains access to mechanisms and powers that can be exercised by the Coordinator General that will ensure its timely and efficient delivery.
That includes timeframe notices, joint decision notices, and modification orders, in particular. If members have read the supplementary notice paper, they will know that I have an amendment that will add another set of notice orders. In the fullness of time, we will see where we get with that, but I want to do a quick comparison between this legislation and what happens in other states. I have been looking at this issue for 20-something years, honourable members. My understanding is—this might be something the minister responds to—that the bill before the house today was based, in part, on the Northern Territory coordinator bill, in which they are referred to as the Territory Coordinator. There are some similarities with that legislation.
We can also compare it with the role of the Queensland Office of the Coordinator-General, which is particularly interesting because it has been in place for 50 or 60 years. The Queensland Coordinator-General has additional powers on top of what is being proposed for the Coordinator General in Western Australia. I visited Queensland 20 years ago to see it in action; it is very interesting. The Queensland law has existed for a long time. The Coordinator-General, at the behest of the representative minister, can say to a department, "I'm giving you 12 months to deliver a report with your recommendation or decision, depending on what your legislation empowers, for this particular project that the state has designated as a significant project." That is the same as a timeframe notice in this bill. The Coordinator-General in Queensland has an additional power and can say to the department making a decision, "If you do not complete that job and you do not make a recommendation or decision in the timeframe allotted, I will step in and take over and make that decision for you." That is an immensely powerful tool because it breaks the bureaucratic morass that is taken advantage of to continually slow down projects. The Coordinator-General can ring up and say, "Hello, department X. You were given 12 months to deliver your report or decision on this issue. We're now 10 months into that. I need to let you know that if you're unable to do that, this important project will be handed over to my department." The department goes, "Wow! We'd better get our skates on. Maybe we'd better actually get to the point of making a decision or a recommendation." The Coordinator-General can step in with a threat that the department may lose control. That is what has to be done to make something happen. If the government wants to push the public service into delivering an outcome within the timeframe that is put, there has to be a consequence. One of the things that is missing in the bill before the house is a consequence, apart from the department notifying the minister that it could not get the job done. What will happen next? The minister will get a bit upset and send a tersely worded note, but the reality is that nothing will happen. If a department in Queensland does not get the job done, the Coordinator-General takes over the role of the listed department.
Legislation in the Northern Territory is much newer; it was put in place earlier this year. What does the Northern Territory legislation have? It has step-in powers, so the same thing applies. The Territory Coordinator has the capacity to say to a department, "If you're unable to deliver a result, decision or recommendation in the timeframe that we gave you, I will take over that process" and the same thing is done. The current Territory Coordinator is called Stuart; he is a lovely guy. Stuart can get on the phone to people in various departments and say, "You were given six months, 12 months or two years to deliver this outcome. How's it going?" If the department says that it is a bit behind, he can suggest that it gets its skates on because in six months time, he can take over the job if the department cannot do it. "Holy mackerel! We'll get our skates on." The legislation in Queensland and the Northern Territory is different because they contain a consequence, which is absolutely missing from the Western Australian legislation. There is no penalty in the Western Australian legislation when a department says that it does not want to do it, and sometimes departments will do that. If they want nothing to happen, they are very good at it. This argument might be had with Sir Humphrey, who once said to the minister, "You shouldn't mistake government lethargy and inefficiency for strategy." That is absolutely the case. If the government does not put in a penalty, there is too much of a risk that nothing will happen. Some amendments on the supplementary notice paper under my name propose to insert step-in rights for the Western Australian Coordinator General. I do not expect that they will be supported—I understand that—but I will try to make the legislation as powerful and productive as I possibly can. At the very least, I think it is worth debating how we might deliver infrastructure development rather than talk about delivering infrastructure development.
In case members were wondering whether I made up what I said about the Queensland model, Queensland's Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning, the home site of the Coordinator-General, states on its website under the section on assessments and approvals:
The Coordinator-General manages the assessments and approvals of infrastructure projects, including environmental and social impacts.
They do not do it for all projects, only those that are identified. If the EPA in Queensland does not do its job in an adequate manner, the Coordinator-General can step in. The same applies to the Territory Coordinator in the Northern Territory. The power exists elsewhere and it is worthy of a debate.
I do not have time to go through all the bits; we will deal with them during the Committee of the Whole House. In the brief time that remains, I will refer to a couple of different areas. We talked about the government's seven failures to date—the seven mountains that the government has failed to climb in the approvals process to this point. Rome had eight hills, but that is another story. One of those things was strategic industrial areas. Seemingly, in Western Australia, the bill will usurp strategic industrial areas and put in place state development areas. We will get to this in the committee stage, but I note that the minister's second reading speech states:
In addition to priority projects, this bill also allows for the declaration of state development areas, or SDAs. These areas are identified to support strategic priorities such as economic growth, industrial development and infrastructure delivery. The planning and development of each SDA will be guided by an SDA plan, which will outline the strategic direction for the area, including economic, environmental and social considerations.
I do not mind that—it sounds quite reasonable—but what has the government done in strategic industrial areas? If a strategic industrial area does not have the same aim, guidelines and ambitions as state development areas, I am a rabbit! It is the same process all over again. The big issue is that the government has not been able to develop any strategic industrial areas. It has a billion-dollar budget set aside for it, but it does not know what to do with it. I would have thought that the first thing it needed to do was to get infrastructure-enhancing services in place. Most strategic industrial areas need additional water, wastewater and affordable and reliable energy services in place. If the government cannot do that in its $1 billion strategic industrial areas plan, how can I have confidence that the state development areas will be any different? I do not understand how the government manages this space. There are a number of strategic industrial areas and largely all of them need additional resourcing. It is my expectation that the big one in the metropolitan region is in Kwinana. It will get by far the most out of that billion-dollar fund, and that is not a negative thing, because it needs enormous investment. The government wants to put Westport and AUKUS together. I am still not convinced that it will be able to do that, given the performance of strategic infrastructure areas to date. I have no confidence in the delivery of those things concurrently. We might be waiting as long for that as we are for the energy transition. We will see how we go. I reckon the government might achieve that one by 2050, possibly, if it works hard from here on. If the government puts half a billion dollars into the Kwinana Strategic Industrial Area, that will just scratch the surface. What does that plan look like? Does the fact that the government is potentially changing the name from Kwinana Strategic Industrial Area to Kwinana State Development Area mean anything? I suspect not. It needs to get on and deliver additional services, such as energy and transport, particularly an upgrade of Anketell Road et cetera, and to open up more industrial land further east. It needs to put in a secure area for AUKUS. It will require a massive investment. Some of the others are just astounding.
In the Great Southern there is Mirambeena Strategic Industrial Area. There are a few businesses in Mirambeena Strategic Industrial Area, but it is largely unserviced. Basically, the only water out there is not potable, so people have to try to catch their own water or do something else. There are almost no services there. I understand that Mirambeena will grow very slowly, but if it is a strategic industrial area, potentially about to become a state development area, surely the government has to invest in it.
But that is not the funniest one. Like I said earlier, I like a good joke and a good laugh. The best one is probably Shotts Strategic Industrial Area, which is in my patch up in Collie. It has been sitting there for 20 years with nothing happening. There was going to be a bridge upgrade, but it has no services. It has nothing. It is a sheep paddock. Apparently, it is a strategic industrial area. If the government can ever find someone to move into it, it might ultimately then get some services. If the plan was to build it and they will come—if we are dealing with the Field of Dreams here—the government is not building it. Basically, it has not cut down the cornfield and there is no baseball field sitting there. It has not been built, so it does not work. There are basically no facilities there.
The same applies to a whole pile of other ones. If the government is going to have strategic development areas, by all means it should write a good plan for strategic development of industry in all these areas and then service them by providing power, water and wastewater services, along with roads and rail when necessary, so that businesses can actually move in and it is not just somebody's paddock with a few sheep in it, waiting for it to develop. That is where this whole process has fallen down to date. It is a labelling of good ideas that deliver nothing and then a relabelling, another relabelling and then changing it again, without delivering the kinds of outcomes that we are all hopefully talking about and that will actually deliver industry, jobs and economic security to the regions. We will get to it maybe in clause 1 or down the track, or when we get to the section on strategic development areas, but will every SIA become an SDA? It would probably cost $35,000 just to change all the letterheads: "We were an SIA and now we are an SDA, thank you very much." They will need some new signs. What changes will make that better? It is only the intent of the government to deliver that that makes any difference.
I will spend my last five minutes on a couple of key projects. Concerns have been raised about state agreement acts. In my view, nothing in this legislation will prevent a state agreement act from happening. I think state agreement acts are going to be less common in the future. Big new projects are more difficult, and when we do have big new projects, they are as likely to be offshore and in federal waters as onshore. The minister might like to confirm that state agreement acts are still in the process. Some state agreement acts are unnecessary these days and they will be better off operating under the Mining Act or various other acts.
There are some terrible state agreement act outcomes. If we want an example of when development has failed, it is very hard to go past the South West region of Collie. The coalfields are in a disastrous state. They operate under a state agreement act. The government is subsidising Griffin Coal in particular to the tune of $308 million until 30 June next year. I do not object to that, even though I have fun in the local newspapers and laugh at it. The reality is that it has kept the lights on in the interim. Do members know what the problem with that is? The government has spent $308 million to deliver the same outcome that it had two and a half years ago. It has not fixed the problem. That $308 million should have changed the administration and functioning of the coalfields to make it better, but all it has done has been to subsidise the operating losses, 10-plus per cent of which is going to international bond holders and debt holders. The fact that the government would spend that amount of money for no result is astounding. That sort of development just has to change.
I do not think the current system works. I tell members what, though: if our energy is in tatters with the government's transition plan, there is no doubt in my mind that the extension of coal generation will now be an inevitability, as will be additional gas into the system. If we cannot get the coal out, basically, the lights are going to go off. That is something the government might look at. It has to be innovative about this process. There are a few things the minister might do. It is interesting that the government used to say that all coal-fired power stations would be closing down. Lately, it has changed its rhetoric to all state-owned coal-fired power stations are closing down, which means that it has actually worked out that it is going to have to keep Bluewaters in place, which I agree with. I think it will. The minister might consider that it might be more efficient for the state to purchase and take over the operations of Bluewaters power station as a part of the state fleet, as it could then manage its middle-term future as well. I would be happy to look at that if I were you guys to try to work through those state agreement issues under those circumstances. It is a well-meant suggestion to the government to have a look at that process.
The other thing I want to mention is that, as the government gets state agreement acts, it will need more peaking gas generation. To achieve that, it is going to need more gas delivered to the metropolitan area. The Dampier to Bunbury natural gas pipeline is at peak at certain times of the cycle. Gas will be needed to keep the lights on as coal is closed down, which the government seems intent to do, so it is going to need more gas. The next step for the government is to get more gas down from the North West to the South West so that it can operate peaking stations when it needs to. It might then actually keep the lights on. What that is going to do to the price of energy is going to be interesting, but, to be honest, I do not think anybody in Australia will see energy prices go down in my lifetime. Nobody has the capacity to drive down energy prices. The best that we can hope for is that the increase in energy costs is minimised. To keep the lights on and minimise energy price increases, the government will have to extend coal and have additional gas generation into the system, which means additional gas will have to arrive in Perth in some way, shape or form.
Hon Dr Brad Pettitt: Do all those things and prices will go up.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: They will go up, but they are going to go up anyway, Hon Dr Brad Pettitt. If we go to 100% renewables, they are going to go up. They are going to go up anyway. They will all go up. The government will ultimately have to manage that process. Members opposite get to be responsible because they are sitting on that side of the chamber. Prices will go up anyway. The question is, by how much? The government is going to require those changes to make that happen. If it can focus on some of those key requirements of the energy system, maybe some of this plan might be able to be delivered. Let us hope that what we are going to pass actually makes a difference. I am not convinced.
