With the National Party urging Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to reject a Renewable Energy Target, the Coalition stands accused of ignoring the need to develop new sources.
It did not take long in parliamentary question time for the energy issue to come to the fore.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten immediately went on the attack.
"My question is to the Prime Minister. The Liberal Government is now in its fifth year of office. Since the 2013 election, have power prices gone up or down?"
It was a question the Prime Minister was not keen to answer directly.
Instead, Mr Turnbull sought to turn the spotlight back onto Labor's record when it in power.
"We know that gas prices went through the roof in the earlier part of this year because there was a shortage of gas on the east coast of Australia. Now, why was that? That was because more gas, more gas, was being exported, to the extent that the local domestic market was short of gas. How could this possibly happen? Well, I'll tell you how it happened. It happened because the Labor Party, in their stupidity and ignorance, refused to take account of the clear warnings ... "
The exchange and ensuing debate came ahead of meetings between ministers and bosses from the energy company AGL.
The Government wants to convince AGL to keep one of its coal-fired power stations, the Liddell power station in New South Wales, operating beyond 2022.
The energy-market operator has said it needs to stay open for the stability of the electricity system.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told the ABC he was confident the Government could convince AGL chief Andy Vesey to sell the plant to another operator if necessary.
"Well, the thing about Mr Vesey ... I was at the meeting with the Prime Minister, with the Treasurer, with others, where he said he'd sell Liddell to a responsible party. Now he's the boss, and he said he'd do that. Now we'll find a responsible party and see if he wants to sell it to them."
At their weekend conference, members of Mr Joyce's National Party voted against a Renewable Energy Target, a thorny issue dividing the Coalition.
Labor claims the Government is avoiding what needs to be done to move away from coal-fired power generation.
And Opposition energy spokesman Mark Butler says the Government is in disarray over the issue.
"The Prime Minister is making this up as he goes along. He really is making this up as he goes along. This was a thought bubble* from last week. Still no costings have been made. The industry, over the weekend, has made it clear that hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars would need to be spent to give this 50-year-old power station a few more years of life. And we want to see what alternative propositions that the Prime Minister might be thinking of."
Setting a Renewable Energy Target was a key recommendation of the Finkel review into the power market.
Greens MP Adam Bandt says, by trying to keep coal-fired plants running and failing to support renewable energy, the Government is putting Australia's environmental future at risk.
"AGL is doing what the scientists have said and what the economists have recognised, and that is AGL's making a commercial decision that there's no future in coal and AGL wants to get on with a renewable-energy transition. Malcolm Turnbull should stop bullying AGL into prolonging the life of an ageing coal-fired power station."
With Mr Joyce's dual-citizenship issues still to be resolved, Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek tried to link his dilemma with delays in implementing gas-export controls.
"Is the Government refusing to pull the trigger on gas-export controls because there are serious legal doubts about the ministerial actions of the Deputy Prime Minister? Why are doubts about his deputy standing in the way of lower power prices for Australians today?" O
Mr Turnbull says the restrictions are still being considered, and he has defended the delay.
"The Government's policy has already resulted in lower prices and more gas coming onto the market. The Minister's determination, which is a determination that puts precise restrictions on exports, is one that is taken after a considerable amount of consultation and information and advice. It obviously requires a lot of consultation and insight into what's going on in the industry."
