Electricity Prices

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (14:54): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier agree with economist Danny Price, from Frontier Economics, who said on radio on 25 January 2016, 'It's fine if people want more renewable generation, that's all okay, it's just that it costs a lot more. It's unreliable and it costs a lot more'?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy) (14:54): One of the authors of our plan, one of the many parents of our plan, is the honourable—not honourable, sorry—Mr Danny Price. He may be honourable one day; who knows? What Danny Price obviously is talking about is that the country has chosen, rather than a market mechanism to decarbonise, the bipartisan approach through renewable energy targets that the Prime Minister and the opposition and the commonwealth parliament have chosen. It is an expensive path.

We prefer an energy intensity scheme. We prefer a market mechanism. That's why our energy security target, and the measures in our plan to reduce energy prices to decarbonise our grid to offer secure, reliable energy, has been co-authored by Danny Price. I would like to compare and contrast that with the opposition's, but they have no plan.