JOURNALIST:
When can we expect to see an energy plan?
JIM CHALMERS:
The Government's made it really clear that we're acting with some urgency here and we hope to have an announcement between now and Christmas.
We know that Australians and Australian industry are hurting right now because of high prices caused by the war in Ukraine. Australians are paying a really hefty price for Russian aggression and a decade of Coalition incompetence - you can't fix that overnight, but we're working around the clock to try and find a solution and we'll announce it between now and Christmas.
JOURNALIST:
What will you put to the state and territory leaders next week?
CHALMERS:
That's a matter for the Prime Minister to engage with the premiers and chief ministers, but what we would like to do is we'd like to work closely with all jurisdictions, with all parts of the energy market to see if we can take some of the sting out of these high and rising energy prices which are punishing Australians and Australian industry. And we've all got a role to play here. We're prepared to play a leadership role, we're prepared to contemplate measures that may not have been acceptable to us in years gone by but there is an energy emergency here caused by the war in Ukraine combined with a decade of underinvestment and Coalition incompetence so we'll do what we can in a responsible, temporary, meaningful way to try and take the sting out of these high and rising prices because we understand the impact that they're having.
JOURNALIST:
Annastacia Palaszczuk has just come out in state parliament today saying to the Government, "keep your hands off our generators." What do you say to that?
CHALMERS:
I haven't seen the Premier's comments. No doubt she'll engage with National Cabinet in the usual, constructive way.
JOURNALIST:
There's a lot of confusion about [INAUDIBLE]. Are we talking about a cap, are we talking about subsidies, are we talking about changes in regulation? Considering the confusion, can you give us a bit more detail?
CHALMERS:
We've made it really clear that our preference is to act on the regulatory front rather than on the tax front and so our intention is to try and find a way to use regulatory levers to impact these price rises so that the price rises we see in our economy are not what was forecast in the Budget. We have been working for some time now with a degree of urgency but none of these issues are simple, there is an element of complexity in each of the issues that we are considering, but we will do our best to put something forward between now and Christmas. We understand the pressure that people are under and that's why we're working so hard to find a solution.
Thanks very much.