Leadership and the National Energy Guarantee

Journalist: Is there anybody ready to make a move in leadership of the Coalition or the Liberal party? 

McKenzie:

Not at all, I haven’t heard any such discussions and looking at Dutt’s public comments he is actually making a call that if you want to see our government succeed then you need on with our policy, and that is to supporting the NEG, which the Coalition party room did overwhelmingly on Tuesday.

Journalist:

What is your message to those trouble makers that are obviously out there? These are not unsourced quotes.

 

McKenzie:

Pull you head in. Honestly the worst thing for our nation will be a government run by Bill Shorten with Mark Butler whose renewable energy target and entire energy policy is based on Greenpeace modelling. Now if you think that is going to actually bring down power prices – you have got rocks in your head.

 

We have got the ACCC report whose whole task was to actually come up with a suite of options to bring affordability around power prices. There are 56 recommendations in that report going to the state government’s role, how they have gamed the system and they have to take responsibility for that. How the retailers have been ripping off consumers, households and industries for years. And how we can work together to actually get that under control. And some measures that the federal government can do to increase competition and get new investment in power generation, such as recommendation four around underwriting new baseload dispatchable power, which is good.

 

That is a good story; so we have got the affordability piece through the ACCC report. We have got the National Energy Guarantee which is going to bring reliability. Let’s not forget we are a first world country, in the 21st century, and we have power black outs. That is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Has everyone forgotten what happened in South Australia? Or here in Parliament House last summer, when Parliament House is rung up and they say “you know what, we have got a little stress in the system can everyone turn the lights off”. That’s happening in Australia in the 21st Century.

 

So reliability of power, being able to get dispatchable power where we need it, when we need it, is important, which is what the National Energy Guarantee actually goes to. So we have got the measures right, we need to get on with it. End the climate wars. End the energy wars. We have got a solid plan to bring down prices and we just need to get on with it.

 

JOURNALIST:

This was an issue that cost Malcolm Turnbull his leadership in 2009 is there concern disunity is rising in the ranks again?

 

McKenzie:

Not at all. In the party room on Tuesday there was resounding support for the National Energy Guarantee, for Malcolm Turnbull and Michael McCormack’s plan for the future to bring power down energy prices.

 

Journalist:

So this is just a couple of outliers in the party.

 

McKenzie:

I would say it is a couple of outliers, and we know their names, and we are not surprised.

 

 

 

(ENDS)