Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I rise to talk to this no-confidence motion. As promised in the earlier debates, we have listened really hard, considered this issue really deeply and discussed it with our team. We acknowledge that there are absolutely plenty of questions here. There were plenty of questions asked in Question Time today and we absolutely acknowledge that the answers were not straight. The minister for Energy has gained a reputation for being tricky, evasive, and for not being straight. As I said in my earlier contribution, as Minister for Parks, Ms Badger, has found him equally evasive as Minister for Parks; evasive, defensive, arrogant, and ultimately not always acting in the public interest and also raising questions about our competence. The question here today is, has he actually lied to this House?
We are talking about the opaque nature of power contracts here. We are arguing about ‑ and it seems we have got several different letters now – what are the major industrials, what are their contracts, what are their transmission costs? This goes to the point and the issue of a lack of transparency of these contracts.
Commercial-in-confidence is too often hidden behind as a barrier to deny the public information and transparency about the decisions that this government and its agencies are making on behalf of the people with, in this case, major industrials. It is a barrier to transparency. It is a barrier to truth. It is a barrier to clarity. It challenges accountability and makes it hard for us to hold this minister to account, because there is no ability for us – let alone the public – to properly understand the power price issues and the advantages that the major industrials get in relation to the rest of us.
Part of what we are talking about here is the complexity of the power-pricing system and the absolute, opaque nature of the contracts that these major industrials have with suppliers and TasNetworks and others. We have listened hard to the debate. We supported the suspension of standing orders because we always do, and this is an important debate to have. We supported urgency because there is no motion that is more important than a no-confidence motion. It is a significant issue.
We agree in many ways with the government here, that Labor has underwhelmed when it comes to the case that has been made. We do not think the case has been made particularly well. I think Mr O’Byrne and others have made that point in the earlier debates. Similarly, we do not necessarily agree that the Liberal members have done a good job of defending their minister and making the case that no, he has not misled here. There are genuine questions here that need to be answered. There are genuine questions in a number of his portfolios, as I mentioned, but I ask the question: is that enough to hang him on? Is that enough to hang him on with a no-confidence motion that has serious ramifications?
Since the 7 o’clock news this morning, we have thought that this kind of motion may have been on the cards. Then, of course, listening to the questions the Leader of the Opposition and others asked this morning, it became more and more obvious that this is the direction that it was going, but we have listened really hard. We have listened to the debate. We have looked at the media reports. We have now just quickly looked at one of the versions of the TasNetworks letters. We did not get either of those letters, mind you, but I have to say that certainly the one that I got from Ms Finlay – I do not know that it necessarily demonstrates the power transmission prices have gone up by 25 per cent. I do not know that you unpacked that necessarily all that well. It seems that now the premier has got a separate letter that, as I am on my feet here, I have not actually seen.
We have looked at the media reports and the media releases. I will make the point, unlike what I heard Dr Broad say in his earlier contribution, I do not see the TCCI saying the power transmission costs to major industrials have gone up by 20 per cent. They make a case for the major industrials. Of course they do, they are a business representative; but they are saying that the pressures are increasing, that the government needs to do all it can to rein in pressures. That media release does not back up the Labor opposition’s case that the prices have gone up by 20 per cent. Ray Mostogl from TMEC is reported 15 to 20 per cent. Like I said before, the TasNetworks letter does not seem to indicate that 25 per cent increase as claimed by the Leader of the Opposition.
While there are genuine questions here, we do not think that the case has been made here. The case for no-confidence in this minister has not necessarily been made. It is a really serious motion to pass and we do not take that lightly. We have moved no-confidence in the past. We did not get it up. The Labor opposition did not support that in the context of a previous no-confidence motion and we do not take it lightly. We stand here today considering this deeply; not least because of the issues for this House and what it means for the House and the principles, but for the minister as well. This has serious personal and professional ramifications for a minister and we cannot let that go unsaid. Collectively we decide about the future of the minister and that needs to weigh heavily on our minds. That is something incredibly serious. We do not think the case has been made for no-confidence.
We believe there is definitely a case here for a referral of some description. If there was a forum that we could refer this minister to where we could hear the evidence, we could interrogate the minister, you could interrogate the major industrials, you could interrogate TasNetworks potentially, in camera, to manage that commercial-in-confidence issue, then that is something that we would entertain. But we understand that it is not within the power of this House to refer this minister to privileges, because he does not reside in this place. He is given permission to come down here and answer questions, but he cannot be referred to privileges through this House.
While we will not support the no-confidence motion, it does present an opportunity for the Labor Party to use its members in the other place to refer him to a similar forum to interrogate some of those issues. I assume that they have asked some of these issues of the minister themselves in the other place. I assume they have received the same kind of evasive and opaque answers in that other place. There is the space to make this case in the other place.
We do not believe the case for no-confidence has been made. We do not think the Liberal Party has necessarily done a great job of defending their minister, but that does not necessarily mean that we are going to fall on the side of no-confidence in this place.
I want to leave some space for one of our other members to speak, should they choose. I want to remind this House for future debates: we are going to be debating, at length, energy pricing, energy policy, energy investments, particularly with Marinus Link. I mentioned this in my earlier contribution, but as we go into that place, particularly the Labor opposition, I ask you to remember this debate. We are arguing over a 20 per cent increase to major industrials of transmission pricing.
Like I said, Grange Resources are not a major industrial, they are not one of the four, but they are a major industry. They are a significant mine in the north-west of Tasmania. They have made a public submission to a committee of this House, a joint committee in fact, that makes it really clear that Marinus presents a significant problem for them. They say:
Marinus will also significantly increase distribution costs for end users in Tasmania. Grange has been informed by TasNetworks that our transmission costs will increase by 29.6 per cent
I leave you with that thought. I hope that, in the future debates about Marinus and about the implications of Marinus, the Labor opposition and the Liberal government reflect on this debate and the significant amount of concern about a 20 per cent increase in transmission costs. I hope they recognise that, as at the information that Grange has, Marinus Link will increase their transmission costs by 29.6 per cent.
I reiterate that we have engaged in this openly, honestly, we have listened carefully. We are no fans of this minister in either of his portfolios, but we do not believe the case for no-confidence has been made. We believe there is a case for some referral to some kind of body so that questions can be answered, but that is not a power that is open to this House.
