Alinta Energy

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:42): My question is to the Premier. What generation capacity, frequency control and system restart services did Alinta offer to provide and at what price?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy) (14:42): I think the best person to answer these questions is Jeff Dimery himself. I have to say that there has been a lot of romanticising about the Northern power station and its capabilities. There has been a lot of romanticising and myth making about the services offered to us by Northern. The facts are that Mr Dimery could not operate that power station and coalmine profitably. The reason he could not do that he outlined in an interview with Ross Greenwood. Ross Greenwood is no friend of the Australian Labor Party, but in an interview just recently on 15 March he asked Mr Dimery this question:

These coal-fired power stations have effectively reached their use-by date because while the economies on electricity in South Australia were as they were it really wasn't viable to continue losing money generating electricity from them.

That was the question. This is Mr Dimery's response:

That's correct. In fact, we're running out of coal supplies. The quality of the coal done in the mining towards the end was very substandard and in fact it was a very sophisticated operation where we were required to blend the coal from different parts of the mine in order to have a quality of coal we could actually burn through the power station.

Mr MARSHALL: Mr Speaker, I ask that you direct the minister to answer the substance of the question, which is clearly about the offer and the capacity of the plant and the offer.

The SPEAKER: I think the Treasurer's remarks are an appropriate prelude to his answering the substance of the question.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The capacity of that plant to operate long term to give us stability, control, inertia and the services that we needed required coal. The aeroderivative generator that we want to procure could offer these services without burning gas, but offer it with a battery. The mechanisms that are required of the Northern power station to decouple—

Mr Marshall: Just answer the question: what generation capacity frequency control of system restarts—

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I'm answering all these questions. It is not my fault that the Leader of the Opposition does not understand that I'm answering these questions. Alinta could not offer us these services because to offer us these services, unlike new generation, they needed to burn coal. Mr Dimery himself points out that it was uneconomic to operate in the market. They were losing money. Their coal was running out. To offer us these services you need to have coal because their generators were not able to operate without the thermal energy, whereas the new generators that we are procuring can operate from batteries and offer us these services. It is fundamentally different.

The Leader of the Opposition is looking confused and dazed, not understanding what this means, and I've got to say it's really concerning. It really concerns me that a year out from the election, not only are the—

The SPEAKER: The Treasurer will cease debating the answer. He may wish to address the question of what were the terms of the offer or he may not.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Mr Dimery has made it very clear to me that he would prefer not to reveal the terms of the offer. I have said this a number of times in this house. If we had accepted this offer, it would be perfectly legitimate for the taxpayer to know exactly how we were spending their money, but I have to say that the idea of us revealing sensitive commercial information when people reproach the Treasurer publicly simply because the opposition want it is flawed.