Statutes Amendment (National Electricity and Gas Laws - Information Collection and Publication) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 28 September 2016.)

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (17:37): I rise to speak to the Statutes Amendment (National Electricity and Gas Laws—Information Collection and Publication) Bill. For anybody who is following this information closely, primarily industry people but also perhaps consumers, I would like to refer them to contributions in this house that they will find in Hansard for the bill that we just debated, the National Electricity (South Australia) (Australian Energy Regulator—Wholesale Market Monitoring) Amendment Bill 2016. Many of the topics covered and many of the contributions that members made would have been relevant to both of these bills in their minds, and I do not see there is any need to go over all of that again.

I think it is worth highlighting that a lot of the issues that members would have wanted to contribute on behalf of their electorates are common to both bills. A lot of the reasons that the government, in conjunction with COAG, has for putting this bill forward are exactly the same as for the last bill. Deputy Speaker, I advise you that I am the lead speaker for the opposition on this bill but I do not think we will be taking too long in this at all. I have not checked with the whip but I am not sure there will be any others contributors from the opposition on this bill.

Suffice to say that we have covered fully today already the reasons why the government is bringing forward this bill, and the opposition fully supports it. The opposition has reservations about whether it will achieve the results that the government seeks to achieve, but nonetheless the opposition fully supports the government in that effort because we want, as I am sure all members of this parliament do, the very best for our economy, particularly for our consumers.

We need businesses to be successful and make a dollar so they are incentivised to continue to provide useful and ongoing services. Businesses need to make a certain amount of profit to be able to do that so that consumers can benefit from what those businesses have to offer. However, first and foremost, I think all of us in this house are thinking about consumers.

Broadly speaking, this bill essentially amends the national energy legislation to ensure that the Australian Energy Regulator has sufficient and clear powers to collect and publish data in its role as the economic regulator of network service providers, so that is the key distinction. In the last bill, we were talking about the wholesale electricity market and in this bill essentially we are talking about benchmarking between different network service providers. Those providers include private organisations both in South Australia and many other states, as well as public organisations in some places, that essentially provide the distribution service for both electricity and gas, and both are very important.

We currently have a situation where the AER may prepare electricity and gas network service provider performance reports, but this bill essentially says that the AER must prepare those performance reports. The existing National Electricity Rules require the Australian Energy Regulator to prepare and publish annual performance reports. What will happen is that they will actually be required to do those annual performance reports.

It has been clarified in this bill that performance reports published by the Australian Energy Regulator may deal with financial and operational matters. What that means is that the Australian Energy Regulator will be looking at not just the operational performance but also the financial performance, which is a key distinction. As the minister said in his closing remarks on the previous bill—it is an often used expression, but it does make sense—the best disinfectant is sunlight. A number of people have used that phrase in this parliament over the past several months and it certainly does make sense.

I do not think anybody could be concerned about that sort of benchmarking. The opposition has been informed that COAG sought consultation far and wide and, while there was certainly some feedback that said, 'This may not make any difference,' there was no feedback provided to COAG of any significant concerns or objections.

In the same vein as has been thoroughly explored in the bill that we just finished debating, the opposition supports the government and supports COAG in their efforts to more thoroughly interrogate, disclose and report on the relative performance of network service providers across the nation. The reason we are doing that is so that we can know in South Australia that we are getting the best deal possible, given the constraints that we work under, and so that we have the best opportunity to improve the situation in South Australia when that is appropriate and where that is possible.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy) (17:43): I want to thank the opposition for the speedy passage of the second tranche of the government's COAG reforms. I thank the member for Stuart for not wasting parliament's time and for his very concise effort, so a job well done for everyone.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1 passed.

Clause 2.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: I assume that the answer will be the same as you provided in the last bill. I am just seeking to find out when you anticipate this bill will be brought into place.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: As soon as it passes both houses of parliament and His Excellency deems it fit to sign. As soon as His Excellency deems it fit to assent to it—as soon as it passes the parliament, immediately.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: It has nothing to do with the federal competition policy connected that would slow this down?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: No.

Clause passed.

Clauses 3 and 4 passed.

Clause 5.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Going to the issue of confidentiality, I know what is in the bill about organisations providing information and being able to make a claim for confidentiality and for the AER, if it feels it is appropriate, to be able to essentially hide some of their information in aggregated information so that it is not possible to identify exactly where it came from. What if there remains a disagreement between the company or the organisation providing the information and the AER? So, they seek confidentiality, and the AER says that it is not necessary or, as it was referred to in the test, the AER might decide that the public benefit outweighs the company benefit in providing information.

The AER might even say, 'We will provide this information in aggregated from, and I don't think anybody will be able to know exactly your personal details.' What if, after those discussions, the organisation is still dissatisfied and still thinks that they will be harmed by providing that information and having it made public? What sort of dispute process will there be? How will that be dealt with?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The bill does not specifically provide for any safeguard mechanism for someone who wishes to have their information held in aggregate if the AER chooses not to, but there is a series of tests built into the system. There may be some other pieces of legislation within the NEM that I am not aware of at this time that might give them the ability. My instincts are that the AER would seek to do what it could to protect people.

Without trying to get into the member's mind, I assume he is talking about someone who is in a commercial relationship with a generator or a network who does not want to be named in terms of benchmarking because they might lose that contract or something else. The AER is not silly. I do not think that they would do anything to compromise their commerciality or their viability as a company. Between the houses, if you can give us some time to go away and have a look at that, I will get you a detailed answer and even check with the AER itself.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: This will be exactly the same, although technically we are looking at a different bill. With regard to extra workload and extra costs to the AER for fulfilling these extra responsibilities, is it still the case as it was in the previous bill that none of that will flow through to South Australian suppliers or consumers?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I am advised that they conduct this function now. This is just about strengthening their ability to obtain information.

Clause passed.

Clause 6.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: With regard to the annual reports, is there a due date for them to be published? Will it work on a financial year? When can we expect this information to be available to the public?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: As I said earlier, this work is already being done by the AER, so there is already a publishing regime in place. We do not expect that to change, but we will check between the houses. As I said earlier, this bill simply gives the AER the ability to find out more information. It already conducts the function—it already reports on that function—we are just giving them a broader scope to get more information. So the reporting function should not change, but we will check between the houses to make sure we are not giving you any false information.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Just for clarity, it will not be an additional report: it will be a report with more information in it?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I will find out between the houses.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Can you advise whether the costs associated with repairs from the distribution network disruption that are currently being incurred are, as they probably will be, ongoing for quite a long time given that the bill says that, essentially, anything that was going on before this comes into place will be part of the old regime, and anything that happens after the bill comes into place will be part of the new regime?

What happens with the costs associated with the repairs that are happening at the moment? I understand that this legislation was prepared in advance of the storm, so it is a bit of a coincidence that the storm and the disruption and the costs will come together. How will those costs be dealt with, because it could have a very significant impact on the benchmarking process?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I am advised the AER still collected information, but could only release it in an aggregated form. The new powers that we are giving it now allow it to be more specific about the benchmarking.

I do not think the concern that you are raising about the new towers being put up now—and are we being benchmarked against best practice everywhere else, and are we paying more or less than we should be for what we are getting—that is not, I am advised, what is changing. What is changing is the ability to report that information, either in an aggregated form or in a specific form. So I think your concerns are covered.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: I understand that, but if I try to put myself in the shoes of a network operator—and given that repairs will be done over a period of time, bills will be paid over a period of time—it might be to the network operator's advantage to try to pay a bit more a bit sooner, or pay a bit more a bit later so that it might appear more or less favourably in different periods in the benchmarking report.

As an aside to that, I think it is very likely that, with regard to network operators going through the normal process with the AER and highlighting the costs that they have incurred and so the charges that it will get down the track, there is plenty of scope there if they want to pick carefully when they want the costs to actually be applied. I just want to know how this process would deal with that.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: They are already benchmarked now, so that work is already done. So they know what it costs to put a tower up here and a tower up somewhere else. What this is about is how they release the information. So, your concerns are covered within the existing framework. This is just about reporting. I think what you are talking about is: what if they delay in paying some bills or spread this out? It will not matter if they already do this work. They already know particular costs of benchmarking between one set of work compared to somewhere else. This is about how they release that information.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: The implementation date won't make any difference then, in terms of when it starts?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: No.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (7 to 19) and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy) (17:55): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

At 17:56 the house adjourned until Wednesday 19 October 2016 at 11:00.