Electricity Prices

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (14:44): My question is to the Minister for Energy. Given the minister asked ESCOSA to do an investigation into a 10 per cent increase in electricity prices last year, will he now ask ESCOSA to do an investigation into a further 18 per cent increase in electricity prices this year?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:44): We don't need an investigation into electricity prices to know what is going on in this country with the broken National Electricity Market. For a decade, we have had the most egregious policy neglect at a national level by our national government, who has fought tooth and nail every inch of the way resisting a price on carbon, and the carbon sceptics over here and climate change sceptics over here have aided and abetted them.

They have been the enemies of rational national electricity policy. They have been the enemies of coherent energy policy integrating climate change policy. This is the single most important reason why there has been a lack of certainty and a lack of investment in energy generation. This is the root cause of all the difficulties in the national energy market. The guilty party is the Liberal Party—the Liberal Party who stand for higher electricity prices, the Liberal Party who hate renewable energy and the Liberal Party who hand around lumps of coal in the federal parliament—and those opposite cheer them on. This is your mess. Get your national colleagues to clean it up.

Ms CHAPMAN: It's not your mess, Mr Speaker. It's not your mess. I'm defending you.

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is right. It's not my mess and so it would be better if remarks were directed through the Chair, although that would deprive the Premier of a great deal of pleasure.