Power Outages

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:27): My question is to the Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy. Following BHP and Adelaide Brighton Cement's announcements last week that they have lost $137 million and $13 million respectively from electricity outages in South Australia, can the minister advise the house of the total economic loss to South Australia from the six major power outages we have experienced since May last year?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy) (14:27): It is very hard to know what insurance levels a lot of these companies have and what they are claiming back from their insurer, so it is very hard to quantify the economic loss.

Mr van Holst Pellekaan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: All the interruptions to power, bar the load shedding, which is also indirectly a result of this, have been related to weather. That is the inconvenient fact nobody wishes to acknowledge. Whether it's storms, whether it's wind, whether it's lightning, whether it's trees taking down powerlines, whether it's inaccessible land to restore power quickly or it is a lack of available supply being directed on in times of high demand because of heat, it is weather. It is not intrinsically a problem of generation.

The problem we have in the National Electricity Market is that there is an oversupply of generation. That oversupply of generation is not coming on when we need it. We have an oversupply of gas-fired generation to meet our average demand. We have an oversupply of other forms of generation.

Mr MARSHALL: Point of order, sir: I ask you to bring the minister back to the substance of the question, which is the total economic loss to South Australia.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I'm getting to that. When you have this imbalance in the NEM, you get perverse outcomes. The perverse outcomes are these: price spikes. Those price spikes cause harm to a lot of our manufacturers, and that is occurring across the country.

Mr MARSHALL: Point of order, sir: I ask you to bring the minister back to the substance of the question, which was economic loss from the intermittency. It had nothing to do with high prices.

The SPEAKER: I think talking about the cost to business—

Mr MARSHALL: But this was talking about economic loss from the intermittency issues, not the high cost issues.

The SPEAKER: I think that's enough interruption. We will let the minister go for the remaining time.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: It's gone now from interruptions to intermittency. Apparently, intermittency is causing blackouts. Well, please show me an example of where intermittency has caused a blackout in South Australia. Again, the Leader of the Opposition needs to get a briefing, actually understand the language that we are using, instead of sitting there—

The SPEAKER: The minister will return to the economic cost of interruptions.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: There have been no intermittency issues with electricity in South Australia. The issues that we have—

Mr Marshall: What do you call them?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Well, what do I call it when a tornado rips down a powerline? I call it an act of weather. What else is it? Did the wind farms get out and rip down the powerlines?

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Those blackouts—

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Those blackouts—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: No government can guarantee that you can predict the weather to a point where you can build infrastructure that will never ever take away supply from industry. It is impossible. There is no jurisdiction in the world that operates in that way. If members opposite are talking about requiring our infrastructure to be at a level where power is guaranteed at 100 per cent, the cost of business will drive them out of the country.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Point of order: I ask you to bring the minister back to the substance: what was the cost to the economy of the blackouts?

The SPEAKER: The minister appears to have finished.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Kavel is called to order for dissenting from the Speaker's rulings in other than the accepted way. The member for Light.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The minister is called to order. The member for Light.