30 October 2025
Gary Hardgrave
Shadow Treasurer Ted O’Brien, the member for Fairfax on the Sunshine Coast, he has a perspective on the state of the economy. What these figures means. He joins us. Ted O’Brien, it’s just electricity prices killing us, killing us dead right now, isn’t it?
Ted O’Brien
Good afternoon, Gary, and certainly, electricity prices are one of the biggest things that have driven the inflation figures up. And you’re right from the figures you stated, just in the three months of that ended, the end of September, and that three month period, electricity prices went up by 9% you can understand why the big manufacturers, the energy users, like Tomago smelter,why they are looking at a dead end right now. They’re going to have to probably close their doors and they point to energy prices. It’s the same the local cafe, the local butcher and baker. And of course, the local household, they promised a $275 reduction household power bills and households now paying well over $1,000 more than what Labor had promised.
Gary Hardgrave
Yeah, and it’s, you know, those numbers are all true. Everyone’s feeling it. People grab a bag and a half of groceries. There’s $300 gone there. I don’t know how people are actually affording to live. They now want to become more reliant on government, which I think is disgusting and problematic, a whole bunch of reasons there. So from your point of view, seeing those numbers, the problem’s just getting worse, week by week, month by month, isn’t it?
Ted O’Brien
It is Gary, because the government will not stop a spending spree. And the more the government pours money into the economy, it drives the prices of things up. And so the government is running its spending at four times faster than the economy itself. So the federal government is spending more than any federal government has in 40 years outside of recession. I mean, it is extraordinary. And so that pushes everything up. So when you go into your grocery store, as you mentioned, and you see, you know, everything’s gone up as you go to the checkout, that’s because of the government spending spree. And so when gas is up 38% you know electricity, you know 39% insurance, well over 30% all of these things are in part, driven by the government spending too much money, pouring so much money in the economy, prices go up. It hurts consumers. And as you said in the in the outset, anyone who wants to have a cheaper mortgage to pay off, well, this completely removes hope of relief from the Reserve Bank next week, when they meet to cut the interest rates. So this is a real problem, because the average mortgage holder today is paying an extra $1,800 a month on just their interest payments compared to only three years ago.
Gary Hardgrave
Well, Ted O’Brien, you’re at the you’re at the top of the tree on the opposition, your Shadow Treasurer, your Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party. You’re right in the heart of all of this. You were also dealing, as as you have dealing with energy prices before the last election, it is energy prices. It is unfettered migration, aimless migration. I’m all for migration. I’m sure you are too, but not migration, which doesn’t work in Australia’s favor. Too much migration is driving demand on housing. Housing now in Brisbane, second most expensive in Australia after Sydney. Price of electricity going up yet we’ve got all that beautiful black coal in the ground here in Queensland. It should be cheap power, not the expensive stuff we’ve got. You’ve got to fix up Net Zero. You’ve got to come out emphatically about that. And I want you to tell me you’re going to you want to do that, but, but we are we are completely ruining this country before our very eyes. And it’s happened very, very quickly.
Ted O’Brien
Well, Gary, unfortunately, I think we’re only at the start, and this is the problem. Everybody feels it at home, because everything is costing more, but it is an early warning sign of what we have ahead of us as a country. Australia is slowly but surely becoming poorer, weaker and more dependent on foreign supply chains, and energy is a big part of that. It’s not the only part, but it’s certainly a big part of it. And the problem with Labor’s approach is it’s completely ideological, and so they want between 96 and 98% of the electricity grid to be renewables. Renewables are important. They’ve been important job to play, but you don’t have one source of technology dominating the grid. And this is madness, because they just spend too much money, like they over capitalize. It’s like at home, right? If you build a big fat fence through your property you don’t need I mean, you know, you’ve spent the money, not much you can do about it, then this is what they are doing to our electricity system, and this is why people at home are feeling it. But it’s actually the beginning of something bigger. You fast forward 20, 30, 40, years, Australia is going to be going in the wrong direction compared to our peers, because the Albanese government is making us poorer.
Gary Hardgrave
I think we’re 20 or 30, 40 days or 30 or 30 or 40 weeks away from knowing we’re in the wrong direction. I think people know we’re in the wrong direction. That’s that’s the point I’m trying to make. I mean government throwing money at sort of camouflage, at band aids, of the complete beggaring of our economy, subsidies to lower the price of electricity, to make people feel good and have elections and all these sorts of things, they come off as they have, and you see inflation spike. So, you know, trying to trying to hide the reality that of what they’re doing is costing us. And so inflation goes up because the government subsidies have come off. The subsidies are only there because they’ve gone down the wrong path already when it comes to generating electricity.
Ted O’Brien
A lot of the subsidies are used as a camouflage. There’s no doubt people need help, and the coalition doesn’t deny that, and we support people getting relief. But the government uses it to camouflage what is really happening if they keep going to solve for the symptom and not the cause, then it’ll only get worse over time, and that’s exactly what’s happening.
Gary Hardgrave
Well the camouflage is there for a reason, because they’ve gone down the wrong policy setting. So look, everybody wants to know. I’m getting messages saying, okay, Ted, so what are you guys going to do about energy costs? Are you going to commit to lower electricity bills rather than a pathway to net zero. I know you’re meeting today, tomorrow, whatever we’re we’ve got high expectations that you’re finally going to follow branch members and indeed your voting base that wants you to say, you know what, net zero was a mistake. Scott Morrison got it wrong. He should never have signed up to it. And we’re going to make an argument. We’re going to make an argument that says that we need to get out of this rubbish and get back to what we used to do cheap electricity, which drove down prices of everything in this country, instead of increasing prices with renewables, what are you going to do, Ted O’Brien?
Ted O’Brien
Gary, well I won’t preempt where we end up landing as a party room, because you’re right. Those discussions are underway, and that’s not for me to come out and pre-
Gary Hardgrave
Well look, it is you’re a leader Ted. So, so what’s your take on it. You always said you were technology agnostic. So what’s your view on it?
Ted O’Brien
Let me give you my take. So I’ve got no problem giving you my take on it. Should we be technology agnostic? Yes. What does that mean in practice? It means you don’t close your coal plants prematurely, you get a lot more gas out of the ground, and you introduce nuclear energy into Australia. Do you continue with renewables? Yeah, of course, they’ve got an important role to play. They shouldn’t be dominating the grid. What should then the priorities be when it comes to establishing policy? Well, we’ve got to get prices down. First and foremost, we need to get prices as low as they can be in this country. Of course, we’ve got to keep the lights on. We need reliability. We need energy security. We need to have the power over our own sources of energy as much as we can, and we can do that as we decarbonize over time. But what Labor has done is they have put decarbonisation as the first, second and third priority, and what that means is they’ve let go of the importance of affordability. And once you do that, not only do households feel the pain, but businesses close, industries go offshore. And if we want a country which is prosperous, is strong and fiercely independent, then we have to get energy right, and that means going back to where you have the importance of affordability and reliability as you decarbonize over time, but as we where we land Gary on specifics like net zero, again, that’s underway. It’s not for me to preempt the party room. I wouldn’t get ahead of colleagues in that regard.
Gary Hardgrave
Okay, so you realize that people are frustrated when they hear this Ted. What’s so bad about carbon? What’s the problem with carbon?
Ted O’Brien
Well, look, carbon dioxide. There’s no doubt that. Can Australia do its bit? Sure. But the thing that frustrates me is the attitude on the part of some, especially the Albanese government, that Australia has to race ahead, just keep racing ahead of peer countries and our trading partners, instead of working in sync. Because once you race ahead, you risk losing your competitiveness. That is exactly what is happening now. So the Albanese government are barking mad in setting new targets for 2035 you know, reduce emissions up to 70%, garbage. The only way that happens is if you de industrialize the country.
Gary Hardgrave
Yeah, exactly. We can have we can have net zero. We can have net zero by 2050, by having no lights on, no industries in this country. So again, what’s so wrong with carbon dioxide? It’s a basic building block, point .004% of the atmosphere without carbon dioxide. There’s no green trees, there’s no vegetables, there’s nothing that’s green, and we need carbon in the atmosphere. I don’t understand why people are accepting that it’s a bad thing.
Ted O’Brien
Oh, look, I think it certainly is important for life itself. Gary, but it’s just a matter of the amount of it.
Gary Hardgrave
But it’s declining. Ted O’Brien, it’s declining around the world, isn’t it?
Ted O’Brien
No, no, certainly emissions aren’t coming down, even in Australia, and this is the hypocrisy of the whole thing under Labor, right under the Coalition, we are able to get prices down, keep the lights on, and we reduced emissions for all of Labor’s talk, price is skyrocketing. The grid is looking, it’s going to fall over. Gary. Guess what’s happened to emissions? Nothing, nothing. It hasn’t gone down at all.
Gary Hardgrave
So what’s the point of all this rubbish? Why are you guys getting completely purged, lampooned? You’re voting. I got to tell you, Ted, the text messages coming in here are saying you’re talking nonsense. You’re saying nothing. Where’s the leadership on this? Isn’t this what this week’s meeting’s about? With the greatest of respect. There’s no leadership on this. The opposition have got a chance. The Liberal Party have got a chance to reframe the entire argument and blame the Labor Party, because everyone’s filthy mad, but they’re actually angrier at you guys for going along with all this rubbish.
Ted O’Brien
Yeah, Gary, I think we’ve been very clear that we completely disagree with Labor’s approach, but I appreciate your feedback. And you know what, I wouldn’t be surprised if people who are sending you messages either the same people or similar people who are sending me messages, you know, to my inbox, my phone at times. And that feedback is important, it really is, but we’ve got to get this right. And I understand people get frustrated with it, but what you never see in the Labor Party, that you see in the Liberal Party is debate. I mean, Labor doesn’t debate. It’s command and control, and that’s why you never, ever see good, healthy, hard debate. Gary, we’re having hard debate now and and that’s what we need. This is too important for us to get wrong. So yep, we are debating it, and that’s the only way we’re going to get to the best possible policy.
Gary Hardgrave
Okay, well, we look forward to hearing our best possible outcome as best possible time like tomorrow would be great. You’re coming back, of course, for Daniel’s Day tomorrow. I know that’s something that’s close to you. It’s all happened in your electorate. Daniel’s law becoming law in Queensland. I guess there’s a lot of things associated with that that you’d probably rightly want to support.
Ted O’Brien
Yeah, indeed, Gary. And for any of your listeners who aren’t aware, tomorrow is day for Daniel. And so Daniel was a 13 year old little boy who, around Christmas time, tried to go shopping and tried to catch a bus and as he was waiting for that bus to take him to the shops, he was abducted, and he was he was murdered, and his parents have set up a family. Foundation, and they’ve really turned a tragedy into a message of hope. And that’s a Daniel Morcombe foundation. Tomorrow everyone dons red shirts. That’s the color of the shirt he was wearing. If anyone wants to go for a walk, by the way, you can still register to walk around. There are multiple walks around the country. And that’s danielmorcombe.com.au, I know I’ll be I’ll be out there on the sunny coast.
Gary Hardgrave
So you won’t be at the party room meeting tomorrow to discuss Net Zero.
Ted O’Brien
No. So tomorrow’s meeting is actually a backbench committee meeting. It’s not a sort of a party room or a joint party room meeting to come to conclusion. It’s one of the many meetings on I do plan to to dial in, if I can, to listen in. It’s an opportunity for people to certainly have a say, but it’s a policy committee backbench meeting.
Gary Hardgrave
Okay, thanks for the clarity on that. Ted O’Brien, thank you for your time. He’s the Shadow Treasurer.
ENDS