Grievance Debate

Renewable Energy

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (15:34): The Liberal opposition has always been strongly and firmly in favour of a well planned, well managed transition away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy, and that remains our position. Let me just tell you, Mr Speaker, that the government, unfortunately, has completely stuffed up this transition. What is worse about this is they have stuffed it up against advice—advice they actually sought.

When they had a 20 per cent renewable energy target, they sought advice on whether they should increase it to 33 per cent and, if they did, what the impact would be. In May 2009, they were told by two independent consultants under no uncertain circumstances not to do it. They were told very clearly that if they increased the renewable energy target, if they allowed more wind farms to come into South Australia, they would destabilise the grid. That is exactly what has happened.

These problems we are dealing with now are not just parliamentary problems. They are not just academic problems. These are real problems affecting real South Australians. Every single household in South Australia, every employer, from the smallest through to the largest, is facing the highest electricity prices in the nation. They are facing the most unreliable electricity supply in the nation. They are also wrestling with the highest unemployment rate in the nation. This is a tragedy that goes to the heart of every South Australian household and every South Australian workplace.

This problem could have been avoided. This problem could have been avoided if the government had even looked to Danny Price from Frontier Economics, whom the government now lauds as a great ambassador for the program they announced two weeks ago. In January 2016, Danny Price made it very clear that renewable energy is terrific in many ways but that it is more expensive and more unreliable. Danny Price said that the problems the government in South Australia is dealing with in regard to energy pricing and energy security are of the government's own making.

Danny Price, a respected economist, is now supporting the government's program to fix the problem the government created. This problem has cost South Australia well in excess of half a billion dollars just in the last 18 months alone, but the South Australian Labor government now wants all South Australians to pay another half a billion dollars plus to fix the problem it created. This is an absolutely disgraceful situation because it could have been avoided.

The government pursued an unrealistically high renewable energy target, against advice, knowing it would destabilise the grid, knowing it would push electricity prices up, knowing it would make electricity supply unreliable and also knowing it would most likely lead to unacceptably high unemployment in South Australia. What is the government's response now? The government says that it is going to provide $24 million to the industry so that the gas industry can find more gas. That is not new news; that was announced last September. The government says it is going to offer its own use of electricity for a tender to be applied for. That is not new news; that was advised last October.

The government says it is going to have an energy security target. That energy security target is just a tax. It is a tax on carbon, and the government knows it. It is not something that South Australians can bear. We cannot have any more taxes in South Australia. Guess what? There is nothing new in that either because the government has been pushing that bandwagon for a very long time. The fourth component of the government's plan is batteries. Well, guess what? The Liberal opposition has actually been saying for a long time that the government should use battery storage, should incentivise and support the development of a grid-scale battery.

As to a gas peaking plant, we have five of them in South Australia already that operate under capacity. The government wants to build another one. It is absolutely a waste of $360 million of taxpayers' money. The government should allow the existing operators to operate more efficiently because then South Australians would get relief far more quickly. The last component is the government's plan to give additional ministerial powers to the Minister for Energy, the minister who has been here for 5½ years and who has created the problem. The government now wants to give him more say in this issue and it is completely unacceptable.