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Next up is the prime minister himself, who was on ABC News Breakfast, who was asked about the government’s short term strategy to deal with the energy crisis on the east coast.
Albanese, though, said there was little reform his government could do in the immediate term, adding that it would be “dishonest” to try and say he could fix the transmission grid overnight:
AEMO has made clear it will stay in place while it is deemed to be necessary. What I can’t do is stand here in my office in Parliament House and create a new power plan or fix the transmission grid. It is just dishonest.
The problem is, we have had 10 years of denial and delays. We haven’t had the investment, we haven’t had the grid effects, and as a result we have problems with the energy system. We had 22 policies announced and not landed. It is just dishonest. If I stood here and said that I could create a new power grid in a day - you simply can’t do that. What we simply needed to do was to have a short-term measure in place, but also to make sure that we get that investment, so that in the future we don’t have these problems.
I think the important point is that both of us went into that meeting at the beginning with a sense of wanting to take the bilateral relationship to a better place, and that is also how the meeting ended.
It’s only a first step. There is a long way to go, but I think the door is open to more dialogue with China.
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