The cost of living was the biggest political issue at the federal election six months ago. That is why Anthony Albanese promised 97 times to lower your electricity bills by $275 a year.

Labor’s election promise has been broken before its first Christmas.

Now Mr Albanese claims that Vladimir Putin forced him to break his promise. Russia invaded Ukraine three months before the federal election. The price of coal, oil and gas were higher in the weeks after Russia’s invasion than they are today.

If Russia’s invasion was such a big factor, why didn’t Mr Albanese be truthful about this before the election?

In any case, Australia has not, and does not, get its energy needs from Russia. We have abundant sources of our own energy.

Our energy problem is not because of Putin, it is because we are not using our own energy resources.

Electricity prices did not rise after Putin invaded Ukraine, they surged a month later, after the Liddell coal-fired power station shut its first unit.

In March this year – the month after the Ukraine invasion – Queensland’s electricity prices actually fell 10 per cent from the previous month.

The month after the Liddell shutdown prices surged by 50 per cent, and they have stayed high ever since.

Things do not look like getting better next year.

Next April, the other three units at Liddell will shut. If taking out 400 megawatts of coal caused electricity prices to surge by 50 per cent, how much will they increase when we shut off 1200 megawatts of coal-fired power?

Like a dreadlocked guru perched atop Mt Warning, surrounded by crystals, the new PM continues repeating his naive mantra that “Renewables are the cheapest form of power”.

However, in the past few years Australia has been installing wind and solar at a rate four times higher than the rest of the world.