Bills

Emergency Management (Electricity Supply Emergencies) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton) (16:05): I am wondering where I was at. If I become a little bit repetitive, I apologise in advance. I do recall that I mentioned about the vacuum of policy and direction at the federal level. I also mentioned Mr Frydenberg being thrown under the bus by the Prime Minister when Dr Finkel released his interim report and recommended a national emissions intensity scheme and we also are aware of the PM's earlier position on this and how today his position has altered dramatically.

We also know that those opposite are opposed to such a scheme and why wouldn't they be? They blindly follow their federal masters. However, the position of the commonwealth and that of the opposition in South Australia is, indeed, at odds with a growing group of individuals and organisations that are calling for a national EIS that includes, amongst others: the National Farmers' Federation; the CSIRO; the Chief Scientist, as I mentioned earlier, Dr Alan Finkel; BHP; the Australian Industry Group; AGL; Origin; the Australian Energy Market; and the Clean Energy Council.

You know what? They are right to be calling for such a thing. How do we actually expect the market to be incentivised and be able to invest with security? Those opposite talk about being supporters of the marketplace and the free market. We say that, when the marketplace fails, a government must intervene. It is quite simple. As if the marketplace will indeed regulate itself for an emissions intensity scheme—it will not do that. To this end, we, on this side, will continue to push for a national EIS. We would welcome those opposite joining us in advocating for a national EIS. I live in hope of that being the case.

I would make this point. In my discussions with my good friend and good-looking colleague, the member for Giles, when we are talking about a price on carbon or an EIS, we have to make sure that the price is set correctly and that it actually changes the marketplace and provides the security that is required for others and the marketplace to invest in alternative means of energy production.

Those opposite say a lot about their faith in the marketplace. They talk about their commitment and how they have, in their words and the words of the member for Stuart, constructively and positively contributed to the debate on energy and how their policy is to have battery storage rolled out. Guess what? How do you actually do this without intervening in the marketplace? That is my point. You cannot rely on the marketplace to do it without intervention.

You sit there with an ideological bent to say the marketplace will work, but the reality is that the marketplace fails and it fails in many areas and that is when government has to intervene. How do those opposite expect to do this in the absence of federal policy? How do they expect to do this without incentivising the marketplace? They cannot and they ought to stop deluding themselves.

I will finish off now, which will make people happy, I suspect. Like many South Australians and my colleagues on this side of the house, I remain somewhat shocked by the lack of leadership on energy issues at the commonwealth level and equally frustrated by the opposition blindly following the federal government. To this extent, this government has had no choice other than to develop and adopt an energy plan for our state, a plan that has at its core South Australian power for South Australians. The only policy of any substance I have heard articulated from those opposite, and so succinctly said by the Leader of the Opposition 24 hours before the 2014 election, is that if you want things to be done in this state and be done properly, vote Labor at the next election, and that remains.

I heard the member for Kaurna talk about the legacy that will be left to the people of South Australia as a result of the construction of the Royal Adelaide Hospital. I hope that that legacy will not be a legacy after the next election because we will still be in power. What will remain are things like the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and, importantly, the energy plan that we have for this state. I commend this bill to the house.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (16:11): I, too, rise to make a contribution to the Emergency Management (Electricity Supply Emergencies) Amendment Bill 2017. The government wanted to make it seem so urgent that there was no time to allow any decent study of the bill through this house before we are asked to make a decision. Before I get to the bill itself, and I will get to the bill itself—unlike many of the members opposite to seem to be using this as an opportunity to rewrite history in a way that makes them not look like complicit failures when it comes to the South Australian electricity market—I have been proud of our response on this side of the house to this energy situation because we have been clear, moderated and consistent in what we continue to say.

I know that this government would like this debate to be about renewables versus non-renewables, but it is not; it is much more sophisticated than that. The fact that members opposite try to have this reductionist argument, that somehow this is as simple as it is, does not do this cause justice. Months ago, when we debated a similar topic in this place, I made the point that there is broad support in South Australia for renewable energy; if that is to continue, the worst thing to do, and ruin the broad-based support for renewable energy, is to go too hard, go too fast and stuff up the electricity market in South Australia, and that is exactly what has happened—exactly what has happened.

This government has failed to deal with a transitioning electricity market and has pushed and created an environment in which this change has been accelerated beyond the market's capacity to deal with it. We now have some fairly drastic measures and a fairly decent sum of money being used to fix up a problem that did not need to happen in the first place. We all agree that renewable energy is part of our energy mix at present and in the future, but we also realise that we are now asking for a solution to make renewables much more synchronous and able to provide a more stable supply of power into the grid.

We are asking renewables to do that before they are ready. It would have been much more sensible to have some better transitional arrangements before we asked renewable energy to make that change, which will become more expensive and much more difficult to implement had we taken a much more cautious approach. That cautious approach should be underpinned by the fundamental fact that we need to provide cheap, reliable energy in South Australia.

There are two very simple solutions to making sure that the market remains much more stable. People ask me, 'Stefan, what is the answer?' The first thing I say to them is, 'The best solution would be to build a time machine and go back to before the 2012 interim DPA that basically made it impossible to stop wind farm development in South Australia, to build a time machine so that we can go back and change the decision that was made in relation to the Northern power station.' It would have needed to stay open for only a few years in order for this transition to be made much smoother and much simpler. But those things did not happen.

Unfortunately, we cannot go back in time and we have to deal with the realities as they sit in front of us. I wondered why this bill was introduced today and about this urgency that requires us to make a decision on this legislation today. I think it has absolutely nothing to do with this bill. I think it has to do with the fact that this morning the Australian Energy Market Operator released into the public realm a report that identified fairly clearly—and again in a moderated and sophisticated way—the issues facing the South Australian electricity market. The executive summary states:

The generation mix now includes increased amounts of non-synchronous and inverter-connected plant. This generation has different characteristics to conventional plant, and uses active control systems, or complex software, to ride through disturbances. With less synchronous generation online, the system is experiencing more periods with low inertia and low available fault levels—

It goes on to say:

The technical challenges of the changing generation mix must be managed with the support of efficient and effective regulatory and market mechanisms, to ensure the most cost-effective measures are used in the long-term interest of consumers.

What they are trying to say here is the fact that we have gone gung-ho on our unreliable wind energy sources has created problems for the market and that the mechanisms to fix this were not put in place before wind generation was brought online. That is essentially what it is saying, and it is something we have been saying since the September blackout and, indeed, before the September blackout. It is something we have been saying for years.

That is not to say that renewable energy has no place in South Australia. What it does say is that renewable energy, at this stage of technological evolution, has a place—a reasonably sized place—within our electricity generation system, but it has a limit. The reason we know it has a limit is that the government has been warned many times about where that limits sits and what the consequences of exceeding that limit are. The first of those was on 9 September 2003, when a submission made to the Environment, Resources and Development Committee stated, 'To set a state-based renewable energy target may result in higher energy costs for South Australia compared to other states.'

That same year, on 24 November 2003 evidence given by Lew Owens, who at that stage was the chair of ESCOSA, said, 'There are technical problems and limits with having large amounts of wind power in our distribution and transmission system.' In that evidence, Lew Owens said very clearly that there is an upper limit to the amount of wind generation we can safely put into the system before it starts to create problems of stability and reliability within our grid. He was right then and he is right now.

In April 2005, advice to ESCOSA from the Electricity Supply Industry Planning Council stated, 'Wind developments in South Australia at the 800 megawatt and 1,000 megawatt cases pose significant risks to the reliability and security of the South Australian power system.' But we do not have only 800 to 1,000 megawatts of wind energy in South Australia. I think we have around 1,700 megawatts, which is far beyond evidence given in 2005. This evidence was given 12 years ago, yet the government did not take heed.

In 2005 again, it was the view of ESCOSA that 'the reliability and security of the South Australian power system was at significant risk in the absence of upgraded conditions for network connections, high quality wind forecasting and proper market arrangements to integrate wind generators more successfully into the NEM'. In May 2009, the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research gave advice to DPC that said that 'limitations on wind power output to ensure South Australian grid stability is estimated to be associated with about a 20 per cent limit on wind capacity'.

But that is not what we have in South Australia. We have in excess of 40 per cent wind generation capacity, and some are suggesting that it is closer to 50 per cent. In 2009 again, it was the view of ESCOSA that 'the commission remains concerned with the long-term safety and reliability of the electricity system in South Australia with 867 megawatts of wind generation'. In 2011, a ministerial statement by then premier Mike Rann stated, 'We face a number of challenges. Some of these relate to managing the intermittent nature of wind generation.'

It is great that he made that statement, but he certainly did not take heed because soon after that he introduced a DPA that would send us well beyond what anybody was suggesting was a safe level of intermittent energy generation that our system could handle. In October 2014, a joint AEMO and ElectraNet study stated:

…having a high proportion of wind and PV generation can present a risk for SA if the Heywood Interconnector link to Victoria is disconnected at a time when all local conventional synchronous generators are offline.

In 2015, AEMO said in a South Australian wind study report that the intermittency of wind generation leading to sudden changes in the supply and demand balance makes managing the power grid more challenging. In February 2016, in an update to the renewable energy integration in South Australia, a joint AEMO and ElectraNet report again stated:

The withdrawal…of synchronous generation and the growth in wind and rooftop PV generation in SA is:

Making the power system more susceptible to rapid changes in frequency, and to larger frequency deviations following a separation event.

I do not know how many times you have to be told something before you believe it, but it seems that this government went on its merry way, and it was only when the entire state went black last year that it actually woke up to the fact that we have a crisis. I do not know how many times somebody needs to be told before it sinks in.

It is extremely frustrating, and it will be frustrating to all South Australians, that in the face of consistent and unrelenting advice the government chose to ignore everybody that it considers to be an expert in this area and instead went down a path that put into jeopardy jobs, put into jeopardy the cost of living of many low income South Australians and put into jeopardy the very image that people have of our state. Members opposite can try to point the finger at everyone else. It does not matter which day of the week, it seems to be that somebody else gets the blame, but the blame rests solely and squarely with this government.

We come back to this bill before us today. There are urgent things that go through this place on a fairly regular basis and oftentimes the Liberal opposition cooperates fully with the government to ensure that important legislation goes through and that it goes through in a timely manner. Without reflecting on another piece of legislation in the house, there are times when the government have put a bill before this place, basically enforced debate on the second reading in this chamber straightaway, only to have to put it off because they botched the bill so badly in the first place that I think amendments to that bill numbered in the hundreds.

We have this piece of legislation before us now and we are being asked to jam it through this place, but I am given to ask the question: what is the government hiding? Is there legal advice the government has that suggests that some of the things in this bill may not pass muster when it comes to interacting with federal regulation and federal law? Are there powers that are being sought in this bill that are not appropriate? We do not know. We will try to tease out those questions, but the government has something to hide. That is the only reason one can fathom that they want us to jam this bill through this place as quickly as possible.

It is interesting that the Minister for Energy was not the one who introduced this bill. The Premier came in and introduced this bill and the next speaker was not the Minister for Energy: it was the member for Kaurna. It seems quite interesting that the Minister for Energy has been benched on this one. Obviously, those opposite feel that he cannot be trusted to ensure the passage of this legislation through the house, so they have given it to the apprentice to try to get this thing through.

It is interesting that, even though the Premier spoke and then the member for Kaurna spoke on a piece of legislation that the opposition had not been privy to, the member for Kaurna had the gall to get up and say, 'Oh, well, the Liberal Party probably won't support it. We want bipartisanship on this issue.' It is pretty hard to get bipartisanship when you do not even show us the piece of paper before you bring it in here.

It is pretty hard and pretty disingenuous to start pointing the finger at the other side of the chamber when you abuse all convention that exists in parliamentary procedure but expect everybody to play nice. It is absolutely disgusting. I can assure you that we will do the right thing when it comes to dealing with the problems in our energy market in South Australia. We will be cooperative actors because the people of South Australia deserve a government and a parliament that are going to do those things.

What galls me is this fake urgency. It was urgent in 2003 when the government first got advice, it was urgent all the way through the 2000s, it was urgent as the wind farms were going up in the early part of this decade. To come in here today and suggest that there is some sort of fake urgency that means that today has to be the day is absolutely disgusting. As I said earlier, it is much more important for us to get this right than it is for us to necessarily get it done today. It was right when it came to making sure that the renewable energy generation fed into the market system properly, and did so seamlessly and without issues, and it is important for us to get this right today as well.

The truth is that this confected urgency, this confected outrage, is doing nothing more than trying to divert us from the fact that AEMO confirmed exactly what we have been saying all along on this issue. To bring this in here today to try to create some sort of understanding that, 'Here we are, we've solved the problem,' is a little bit like putting the inmates in charge of the asylum. Those who created the problem now want to give themselves more power to fix their own problem. The truth is that if we could have confidence that this government could fix the problem, they would not have created it in the first place. If calmer heads had prevailed around the cabinet table, we would not be in the situation we are in today. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Basically, this bill creates an entire new section within the Emergency Management Act. The Emergency Management Act creates states of emergency for natural disasters—things like bushfires and floods—and, through the State Emergency Management Committee, there is a series of steps the government normally has to go through to declare a state of emergency. This bill creates an ability for the minister to declare an electricity supply emergency. Clause 27B(1) provides:

If it appears to the minister, on reasonable grounds, that the supply of electricity to all or part of the South Australian community is disrupted to a significant degree, or there is a real risk that it may be disrupted to a significant degree, the minister may declare an electricity supply emergency.

The operative words here are 'on reasonable grounds'. If a bushfire happens, I think we can understand what that is; coming from the area that I do and in the electorate I represent we understand what a bushfire looks like. From this last year, we also understand what a flood looks like. However, 'on reasonable grounds' is the term used to define when the minister can intervene in the market.

This is a bill that seeks to create an emergency situation when we are in crisis. I think that crisis is fairly clear: the continuing election of the South Australian Labor Party here in South Australia. Those are the 'reasonable grounds' on which we need to declare an electricity supply emergency because if we had a different situation we would not need this piece of legislation in the first place. So 'on reasonable grounds' is certainly a term we would love to explore, and I dare say that the 2014 election result was probably where the 'reasonable grounds' started. Obviously, this crisis is of the Labor Party's own making, and now they are basically asking for as much power as can be given to solve their own issues.

Within the committee stage we will certainly be exploring many, many issues around the legality of this, around what advice the government has sought and received in relation to this bill. We will be asking questions around why it is that today is the day, why we need to butcher parliamentary convention in order to get this through. We will also be asking why the government continues to ignore the advice it is being given on a consistent basis.

With my last remaining minutes I would like to plagiarise from a TV show I am sure many of us in this place have watched—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER:Peppa Pig? That is what you usually quote.

Mr KNOLL: No, actually Peppa Pig is strangely silent on this topic. The TV show essentially says this: there is a man who is caught sitting on a floating piece of plywood in a flood. He looks up to the heavens and he says, 'God, please come down and save me. I have been a good Christian all my life. I want you to come down and save me in my hour of need.'

He happens to come across a man in a boat. The man in the boat says, 'Quick, get in. I will save you from the rising waters.' The man says, 'It's okay, I don't need your help. I know what I am doing. God is going to save me. Just continue on your merry way.' The man floats on his piece of wood past a man sitting on the roof of a house, who says, 'Grab my hand. I will pull you off your piece of plywood and bring you up onto the roof where you will be safe.' The man says, 'It's okay. God is going to save me. I have been a good Christian all my life, and I know he will come down and help me.'

The man continues to float on through the flood and a helicopter comes along and puts down a rope. The pilot says, 'Grab on to the rope. I will pull you up and save you from where you are.' The man says, 'It's okay. God will save me. I have been a good Christian all my life, and he will save me.' So, the man continues to float on the piece of plywood. The man drowns. As he floats up into heaven, at the gates of St Peter, he says, 'God, I have been a good Christian all my life. Why didn't you save me?' God says, 'I sent you a man in a boat, I sent you a man sitting on a roof and I sent you a helicopter. Why did you not take the advice and the help that I have given you?'

This is exactly the same case. The government has received consistent advice from people putting out their hand and saying, 'Please, let me help you. I know how to help you,' and the government has consistently and repeatedly ignored that advice. Now South Australia is drowning, and the only people to blame are the South Australian Labor Party.

Mr GEE (Napier) (16:31): I rise to support the amendment bill introduced by the Premier to amend the Emergency Management Act 2004. I want to tell you a story of action, denial and desperation, action by a progressive and visionary Premier, denial by a Liberal leader who has no policies, and desperation by a Prime Minister who is trying everything and anything to be popular.

On this side, we have a comprehensive plan to take control of South Australia's energy future and, over on the other side, we have a party that sold South Australia's electricity and is now blaming everyone else for the problems. We have a Prime Minister who is happy to stand up in the federal parliament and criticise South Australia and then take action when the power goes out in Sydney.

South Australia has a really good mix of electricity generation that, prior to the election, was praised by the Prime Minister but is now criticised for short-term political gain. We have a mix of gas and renewables with a backup of coal via the interconnector. We are the leader in renewables, and that is a positive because coal is not the future: the future is renewables.

South Australia is being failed by the Australian Electricity Market Operator, which is why the Minister for Energy needs to be given additional powers to intervene in the market to guarantee supply for all South Australians. South Australia can never have a repeat of 8 February 2017 when the Australian Electricity Market Operator knew there would likely be insufficient capacity in the system and failed to direct the second generator at Pelican Point to turn on. It caused South Australia to lose its power.

This bill is about the future of energy supply in South Australia. This government is taking charge of our energy future. We will build a new state-owned, gas-fired power plant that will not only provide energy security for South Australians but jobs for South Australian workers as well. These jobs will come online over the next 12 months as the state embraces the concept of owning their own power generation again.

Will people listen to the opposition desperately telling everyone what a terrible idea this is? No-one will be listening to the Leader of the Opposition or the Liberals when it comes to energy. They still remember what they did to the state's power assets last time they were in government. Once our energy plan is fully implemented, there must be legislation in place that prevents the Liberal Party from ever selling the state's power generation again.

I am just reminding myself of the story from the member for Schubert. The Liberal Party is like the fox who tells the gingerbread man, 'Jump on my back. I won't eat you.' As he gets deeper and deeper out into the water and the gingerbread man gets higher and higher on his head, what happens? The gingerbread man—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I don't want the member for Napier heckled.

Mr GEE: —gets eaten by the fox. Why does the fox eat him? Because it is in his nature. Just like that, it is in the Liberals' nature to sell everything.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I'm on my feet.

Mr GEE: Why do we have to take charge of our energy security here in South Australia?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Napier, sit down. It is very late in the day. There is no need to heckle the member for Napier. You are all well aware of the standing orders. The bases appear to be loaded. Did you leave us at question time, deputy leader?

Ms Chapman: No.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, you will be very close to going out the door in that case, so I would be careful. Member for Napier.

Mr GEE: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Why do we have to take charge of our energy security here in South Australia? Because the Liberal Party sold it. That was nearly 20 years ago. That single piece of legislation increases the cost burden for electricity every year for South Australians. No matter how much those opposite trivialise the sale of our power assets, repeating the line, 'It's nearly 20 years ago. Let's move on,' the public have not forgotten. It is the most talked about reason for the power prices people are forced to pay. In retrospect, it really was a shocking act of sabotage by the Liberal government. Our government really has no other choice than to take charge of our power supply.

The people of South Australia expect it and the people are right behind it. So, what specific action is the South Australian government planning? A new gas-fired power station owned by South Australians, not the private sector, which will provide backup power during emergencies. It can be turned on as required without waiting for action from the AEMO. The plan will also deliver the largest battery in the Southern Hemisphere, which will be a great step forward and will see us leading the nation once again. The battery will be able to store renewable energy from our wind, solar and hydro generators.

A renewable technology fund will also generate more investment in South Australia which in turn will create even more jobs. This plan will see a reduction in electricity prices for South Australians by incentivising the exploration and production of more gas. Our government is promoting gas development in South Australia while the opposition is looking to ban gas exploration. The Liberals' plan, or lack of any plan, will deliver more instability and higher electricity prices. Under a Labor government, South Australia will not be following other states to ban gas exploration while at the same time coal power generators close.

The South Australian energy plan is supported by SACOSS, it is supported by SACOME and it is supported by South Australia. It is time that the South Australian Liberal opposition got on board. The opposition offers no solutions for the control of energy in South Australia. It appears that the opposition is simply not interested in the future of South Australia. The South Australian public see through all of their political grandstanding and they are learning pretty quickly that, when it comes to power, there is simply nothing there. The leader talks about a utopian existence and socialism. The leader is living with the Prime Minister in a parallel universe where there is no climate change, where coal will go on forever, and they are interested in lobby groups, not the men, women and children in South Australia.

This bill will deliver more energy security for South Australians. It will allow South Australia to deliver South Australian power for South Australians so that we can increase our self-reliance and provide reliable, competitive and clean power for all South Australians into the future. It is a very impressive and comprehensive plan. An important objective of the state government's plan is South Australian power for South Australians. It will deliver for South Australians and it is supported by local residents in Napier. How would I know what they are thinking, you might ask? Because I have been asking the good people in our northern suburbs.

Over the past three weeks, I have talked to workers travelling to the city by train on the Gawler line. I have doorknocked the residents of Davoren Park and Smithfield areas and completed shopping centre visits during this past weekend. I can advise the parliament that not one person I spoke to was supportive of the sale of the state's electricity generation by the Liberal Party—surprise!—and every person I spoke to felt positive about the state Labor government's plan to take charge of the state's energy, whether they were students and workers heading to the city, to university or work on early morning trains, or mums and dads in local shopping centres buying the groceries on the weekend, or seniors in their homes struggling with bills and blackouts. They just want action and they know that only Labor has a plan.

This amendment will complement and add to the advances that have already been made towards achieving our renewable energy target. South Australians overwhelmingly support renewable energy. Currently, all power generation in South Australia except for PV is in the hands of private operators. Our government does not own or control the generation, transmission or distribution of South Australia's electricity. We are going to fix it. We are going to take charge of our energy future and we are going to drive down the price of electricity in South Australia. We are going to provide energy security for South Australians. I commend the amended bill to the house.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (16:40): What an interesting day it has been. The Premier came in here and sought leave to introduce a bill to the house without notice and suggested that it was very urgent and that we should get it through parliament and pass through all stages immediately. I am not sure how many government members have spoken now. The Premier was followed by a backbencher and then we had the Attorney-General, who I expected would give us some legal background to this—and I will come back to that in a minute—and then we had a few other backbenchers. We have not heard from the minister.

If this was so important, I have to tell the house, to this stage nobody has shed any light on the bill. It is very hard to shed light in South Australia under the circumstances. We all know that. Did the last speaker ask those good citizens at Davoren Park what they thought about the Labor government selling the South Australian Gas Company? Did he ask any of them about that?

What a fiasco we have here in South Australia. Over recent times, I have witnessed a number of people saying, 'Let's stop the blame game and get on with fixing it.' I have spent most of my life as a farmer and as a farmer I reckon I am a reasonably practical person and I can turn my hand to most things. However, I have never seen a man or woman tackle the task of resolving a problem without identifying the problem and without identifying what caused it. I have never seen that occur. If somebody did resolve a problem without identifying the cause, I suggest that it would be called an accident. You have to understand what caused the problem before you set yourself to fix it.

The Premier and the minister know what caused the problem, but they do not have the guts to come out and admit it because they know that they are most of the problem. What they do instead is deny the cause of the problem, which has been their policy for the last 15 years, and more recently they have sought to blame the federal government. May I remind members of the house under whose jurisdiction the supply of power is: the last time I looked at the constitution it did not have much to do with the federal government. It is a state function.

You can talk about carbon taxes and carbon prices, and we have had a federal election on that—we have had several. The people of Australia have rejected it: that big, fat tax of the last Labor government federally was rejected by the people of Australia. We have already identified that problem, the people of Australia did not want a tax. Let's move on from there. What has caused the problem in South Australia? Anybody and everybody who has looked at this seriously knows what has caused it.

It has been caused by huge investment in South Australia in intermittent electricity supply—renewables—largely rooftop solar, which only produces electricity for a few hours in the middle of the day or the early afternoon and only produces electricity when the sun is shining but will not run at capacity on a hot day when the sun is shining its brightest. Those who have looked at them know that the efficiency of that technology drops off as the temperature increases. The other thing we have invested huge amounts of money in is wind farms. Again, history has taught us that on the hottest day, when our electricity consumption is at its maximum, they do not damn well work. They shut themselves down when it gets hot.

I was really interested the other day when the energy minister told the house that we have invested about $7 billion in South Australia in renewables—$7 billion—and now we have a system that does not work. If only former premier Rann in 2002, instead of saying, 'I'm going to build another interconnector to New South Wales and lower the price of electricity,' had said, 'I'm going to spend $7 billion and build us a nuclear power plant,' where would we be today? We would be a lot better off than we are. But he did not say that.

This government is arguing that it is the federal government that has caused the problem. In fact, the minister has tried to intimate that it is the federal government that has caused the growth in wind farms in South Australia. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, back on 16 December 2009 (that is a fair while ago), the then premier of this government put out a press release and granted a payroll tax exemption to any company that was building wind farms—a payroll tax incentive, yet now we have the minister and the Premier saying, 'It's not our fault. It's those dirty rotten federals. It's that dirty rotten Coalition government in Canberra that has caused all those wind farms to be built.'

This Labor government gave a payroll tax exemption to people who were building wind farms, yet they say, 'No, it's not our fault.' They have incentivised people to come and build the wind farms in South Australia. A document prepared a few years ago by RenewablesSA, 'A low carbon investment plan for South Australia', states on page 7:

South Australia's success in drawing low carbon energy investment is not just the product of its natural resources. The State Government moved early to gain an advantage in the development of renewable energy sources by leading the nation in setting policy frameworks and regulatory processes to provide greater consistency, transparency and the certainty that investors need to capitalise on these outstanding resources.

This was when the government announced that they wanted to meet a 50 per cent target of renewables by 2025. There is plenty of evidence on the record about this government and its encouragement of renewables in South Australia. That is why they remain in denial. They know what has caused the problem. When you read the AEMO report that was released this morning, what caused the problem? There were a number of steps.

The blackout actually occurred when the Heywood interconnector dropped out—that is when it occurred—but it dropped out because the wind farms switched off because they could not handle the sudden changes in frequency on the grid. If the wind farms could have handled that, we would not have had the blackout, but they could not. If we did not have the wind farms and we were still relying on, for instance, the Port Augusta coal-fired power station, I doubt very much whether we would have had the blackout because we would not have had all those wind farms drop out. That triggered the interconnector to drop out and we had the blackout. We can huff and puff, but the wind farms are causing the problems.

They are also causing problems because they have made it uneconomic for the traditional thermal-type power stations, like Port Augusta, to keep operating. Why do they make it uneconomic? I do not know whether members realise this, but generators bid in five-minute segments, 24/7, 365 days a year. They bid in five-minute segments that they will supply a certain amount of power at a certain price and AEMO adds them up until it has enough to meet the demand that they expect in each five-minute interval. It starts at the lower price and gets up to somebody who has bid in when they fill their order book to meet the demand for that five-minute interval. They rule the line there and say, 'That's the last generator that we will dispatch.'

I have heard the minister and the Premier talk about coal-fired generators gaming the system. Where the gaming in the system occurs is when the wind farms bid in extremely low; in fact, they often bid in at a negative price. But guess what? That is not the price they supply at. They supply at the cut-off price when the last generator is dispatched, whatever that price is, because the wind farms always know that that will be a thermal generator or a gas generator and they know that it will be a substantial price. They bid in very low so that they are always dispatched, whereas the thermal generator keeps pouring coal or gas into their boiler, bids in at a price to cover their costs and quite often gets knocked off. The wind generator is not paid at their bid price. They are paid something substantially above it.

It gets worse. They are paid for a renewable energy certificate, and for every megawatt hour they produce in today's market that certificate is worth about $85 to them. The Port Augusta power plant used to supply energy into our grid at about $30 a megawatt hour. The wind farms that have driven that generator out of business get at least that $30 (and it is a hell of a lot more now) and another $85 on top, and we sit around and wonder why the system is falling over.

The rules our market system operates under were developed in the late 1990s before there was any comprehension that we would have such a penetration of wind farms and rooftop solar panels. This government has sat with its hands on the wheel but its brain in neutral. I have heard no argument and no debate about changing the rules to meet the energy mix we have now—none whatsoever, yet we have this stupid piece of legislation stating, 'We are going to take back control.' That is what this is saying, 'We are going to take back control.' Well, hello!

On 3 June 2009, in this house I argued: why are we giving away control? Why are we giving away control when we got rid of the energy supply industry planning council, which was a South Australian organisation giving the best advice possible to the government in South Australia. This government got rid of it. I argued—and it is in the Hansard of 3 June 2009—that it was a retrograde step. Eight years later, the Premier is running around saying, 'We need to take back control.'

He and his government actually got rid of the control and handed it over. This government has little or no understanding of what it is doing. But it gets worse. We saw the Premier hijack Josh Frydenberg's press conference the other week. I thought Frydenberg handled himself fairly poorly, actually. I am damn sure I would not have stood there and taken that.

As Samuel Johnson said in 1775, 'Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.' He was talking about our Premier. The Premier can stand up and say that he is fighting for South Australia as often and as loudly as he likes, but he is a fraud. He is not fighting for South Australia: he is fighting for himself. He is fighting for his own political life. For this government to argue the patriot line, that anybody who makes adverse comments about South Australia is anti South Australian, is a nonsense. They are arguing anti the current government.

Thank God, we all know that for the last eight years at the last two general elections the people of South Australia have been trying to get rid of this government. At last, we will face an election in just under 12 months' time when I would argue that for the first time since 1975 the people will have an even chance—just an even chance—of getting rid of a government they want to get rid of because they have not had that ability in all that time.

The Premier, who is here only as a result of the worst gerrymander that has ever occurred within this nation and endured for such a long time and who ran up the flag of South Australia saying, 'I am the true patriot and anybody who has a crack at me and my policies is anti South Australian,' will see next year just how the people of South Australia regard him when they have a reasonable and fair opportunity send him an accurate message—because he will get it.

This piece of legislation is a nonsense. When we had the load shedding back in February, imagine what the minister would have done. He will think to himself, 'I have the power now to prevent this from happening.' He gets notification that there is going to be a requirement to load shed in South Australia because we have this mess of a system that he has helped develop. He says, 'I'll fix that.' What does he do? He gets on the phone, rings up Pelican Point and says, 'You've got to start your generator.' 'Okay,' they say, 'Yes, we'll go and press the button, turn the switch and light the gas burner and away we go.'

The load shedding would have occurred well before that plant started producing energy to prevent it. This is the nonsense that this minister and this Premier and this government try to put forward to the people of South Australia. Do they really think that we believe that the people of South Australia believe that the market operator sits in Victoria and plots against South Australia? Do they think that the market operator sits there and tries to devise an outcome that makes the lights go out in South Australia? Do they really think that?

Does anybody on the government benches think that their minister is more adept at keeping the lights on than the national market operator? Does anybody over there think that? I doubt it. I am absolutely convinced that he is not, and there is plenty of evidence to back me up. This government has presided over a lot of messes in the last 15 years—a lot of messes—but none as great as this.

As the member for Schubert pointed out, they have been warned over and over and over and over again, yet to this day they still remain in denial. Good on them, I say. Keep going down that path because the more of you who are given your marching orders by the electorate in March next year the better because none of you deserves to be in here with what you have done to this state.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (16:59): I rise today to speak very positively in support of this important piece of legislation, legislation that responds to our South Australian community's desire for our government to develop and deliver a strong plan that will secure South Australia's long-term energy future. It is legislation and a plan that provide a balance between taking control of sourcing, generating, controlling and securing our own energy, being environmentally responsible, moving away from the federal Liberal government's penchant for dirty coal, putting downward pressure on energy prices and creating South Australian jobs.

This is legislation that demonstrates leadership and vision and speaks to our government's passion for ensuring South Australia is self-reliant and strong. It is no secret that we have faced difficulties in South Australia in terms of our energy security and affordability. This is based on a number of critical factors, with the largest being the incredibly short-sighted decision by the predecessors of those opposite to sell off ETSA, to take control away from South Australians over their energy future.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have spoken with many, many people in our southern community about our plan. I will speak more about this in a moment, but at this point it is very clear from those conversations that people know exactly who sold ETSA, exactly who took a crucial state asset out of the hands of South Australians. They know exactly what the consequences of that have been, as do those workers whom I have had the privilege of representing and advocating for over many years and who also bore the brunt of the selling off of ETSA.

Conversely, our South Australian Labor government is tackling the problem head-on, with a suite of solutions which cleverly contemplates and moves us forward through the context of a difficult National Electricity Market in a way which ensures that all South Australians can access safe, affordable and clean energy now and into the future. As has been said, our plan sets out a multifaceted approach, which as a package will assist South Australians across every community.

Firstly, we are implementing a new energy security target that will increase South Australia's energy self-reliance by requiring more locally generated, cleaner and secure energy to be used in our state. Secondly, Australia's largest battery will be built here to store renewable energy and to add stability to supply as part of a new $150 million renewable technology fund. Thirdly, we are building a new emergency gas power plant to ensure government-owned emergency power is available in South Australia so that we have energy security and reliability in whatever circumstances arise.

Importantly, this will be a significant source of job creation in South Australia, a matter which is of paramount importance to our government. Initial estimates are that this plan will create 520 full-time equivalent jobs through the initiatives I have described and another 100 full-time equivalent jobs in increased gas exploration. These long-term investments are good for our economy, good for our state and, most importantly, good for our community members, who want jobs created for their children and grandchildren right here in South Australia.

Fourthly, today we are legislating for local power over the national market, to give our energy minister direction over the market so that the needs of South Australians always come first. These changes will allow a more rapid response to security and reliability problems, which will bring back some government control to a volatile energy market. We must ensure that we do not have another situation where a private power company has the capacity to turn on a generator in an emergency and does not. This should be a basic responsibility of those who provide an essential service.

The plan of course involves other components, but it is these that I address today. I direct honourable members who are struggling with some of the concepts to our comprehensive website at energyplan.sa.gov.au, a website that thousands and thousands of South Australians are accessing for clear information about our clear and visionary plan. It will come as no surprise to members of this chamber that people have differences of opinion over energy issues, as they are well entitled to do, but whilst talking to members of my own community about this plan I have found widespread support for the positive action outlined within it.

People are particularly supportive of the fact that we are taking the initiative, taking control and ensuring our ongoing energy security and reliability. From telephoning and doorknocking community members, doing shopping centre visits and attending community meetings, I have had the great privilege of getting a broad picture of just how our community feels about our plan.

Firstly, there is a general feeling of relief from people that our government has listened to their concerns, deeply listened, and is taking decisive action. Many have said to me, when I have asked them their thoughts on the plan, that we just had to do something. I believe that these people would not have supported the move to adjourn this debate today. As many people have said in support of our plan, 'Yes, this is great. Just get on with it.'

Coupled with that is an almost unanimous sentiment that we have to find a way to be more self-reliant, that we cannot simply rely on a broken National Electricity Market, nor on other states, as they fear that we will be second-class citizens to those on the eastern seaboard. They are heartened by the sentiments of our Premier, so eloquently expressed to minister Josh Frydenberg, and they are confident that we, and sadly we alone, will stand up to Canberra and ensure energy reliability for all South Australians.

I had person after person at Coles at Christies Beach, at Southgate shopping plaza, at doors, at community meetings and on the telephone saying, 'Please tell Jay "good on you".' At the closure of a very well attended community meeting two weeks ago about another local community issue, at the packed-out Christies Beach Surf Life Saving Club (my wonderful surf lifesaving club) a woman approached me and said, 'Katrine, I wish you had asked for a show of hands about Jay's energy stuff at the end of the meeting. I reckon you would have got 100 per cent support.' Whether we would have got 100 per cent support I am not sure, but from every conversation since that moment I reckon we would have been pretty close.

While worry over power bills is certainly of note, people are clear that this plan may give us a pathway forward in terms of stemming future price hikes. Our plan finally answers a range of pressing concerns for community members. What also came up over and over again was that, despite the scare campaign from those opposite, community members actually understand why renewable energy is important to our future and the future of our planet. It is not news for them that the age of dirty coal is over and that we must be more strategic about our energy choices. We on this side of the chamber understand that a carefully considered move away from high carbon-emitting unsustainable fuels is the way of the future.

People are tired of being fed oversimplified lines about power. They are ready to hear and reflect on our detailed plan, and they have shown this through an overwhelmingly positive response. They want a government that stands up and takes real action to answer some of the pressing questions for our state. Our action and service to the South Australian people in these matters are apparent, as is our desire to put South Australians first in every aspect of this plan to ensure the security of South Australian power for South Australians.

What do we have in response to our carefully costed, well developed and economically and socially responsible plan? We have an opposition that still talks about coal and allows Canberra to announce, in the words of our Premier, Jay Weatherill, 'a $2 billion insult' to South Australia designed to keep the lights on in Sydney ahead of those in Adelaide when the federal energy minister came to Adelaide to talk about the Snowy River hydro plant.

Mr Bell: No, he didn't. He came to open a $20 million AGL project.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Mount Gambier, you will be leaving the room.

Ms HILDYARD: As our Premier also said, this commonwealth Liberal government is 'the most anti SA government we have seen from a commonwealth government in living memory'. This begs the question of those opposite, in the long-sung words of extraordinary singers Florence Reece, Pete Seeger and Billy Bragg: 'Which side are you on?' We on this side of the chamber are firmly on the side of South Australia, on the side of South Australians. We stand up for our own energy, for our own jobs and for our future.

Mr Bell interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is lucky you are still here, isn't it, member for Mount Gambier?

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (17:08): Thank you, Deputy Speaker, for your indulgence. I want to put a couple of thoughts on the record and then explain in a bit of detail why assertions by members opposite are false and misleading. This plan will do nothing to reduce the price of electricity. If you understand anything about the market, you will notice that nothing in Labor's plan addresses price. I will give some credit that it will try to address the reliability of the grid and the way that intermittent energy and renewables play into that grid. Instead of looking backwards, the last thing I will say on that is that Labor conveniently forgets that the reason ETSA was sold was a little thing called the State Bank disaster, which technically bankrupted South Australia, but let's not concentrate on that little aspect. Let's talk about other facts relevant to moving forward.

I want to place on the record that I wholeheartedly support renewable energy. There is no doubt that is the planet's way forward and that we need to make sure that renewables play an ever-increasing part of electricity generation. There is no doubt at all. However, what we have here is a disorderly retreat from the market of base load power, in particular coal. It is quite interesting that the Labor government will stand up here to talk about that disorderly withdrawal but make no mention of the fact that setting a renewable energy target at 40 per cent actually has a fair bit to do with that disorderly withdrawal from the market.

When I talk to people, they have an issue with and have trouble getting their head around the $350 million build of a gas-fired power plant that is just going to sit there. It is going to sit there to provide inertia. The Minister for Energy will say, 'It is operating.' What he is failing to tell people is that it is not generating electricity into the market to keep the price down. In fact, the question I have for the minister is: at what price point would the power station come into the market? Would it be $500 per megawatt hour? Would it be $1,000 per megawatt hour? Would it be $14,000 per megawatt hour, which is the cap under AEMO?

At no point does this bill mention at what price that power station would generate into the market. I could understand if the Premier or the minister sat there and said, 'We are going to put a ceiling on this at $500, $1,000, $14,000, or just under that, to provide a ceiling for electricity generation.' But, no, it is going to sit there in case we have load shedding and we need to turn it on. That means that you and I will be paying for this and that it will not be bringing costs down. Not only are we paying for the install price but there is no ceiling price at which this state-owned generator is going to enter the market—$10,000, $5,000, at no point will this state-owned generator actually enter the market. It will be only to provide security.

That is why I make the initial point that nothing in this bill addresses the price of power. Ministers and backbenchers who stand up and say, 'This is a wonderful plan. This is going to address the price of power in my electorate,' clearly have no idea what they are talking about. The 100 megawatt battery, for the price tag, if the estimates are correct, will provide 2.5 minutes of backup if we have a statewide blackout. Of course, we can argue that it is not designed for an entire statewide blackout. It will be to provide for parts of the market that may close down, and of course it will then be able to supply backup for a longer period of time.

But it really does worry me that the Labor government does not understand the market. There is no gas reserve for domestic supply, so we are now heading headlong into gas providing the transitional fuel but with no guarantee that there will actually be enough gas there. The minister is quite elusive around that topic. I wonder what forward gas contracts have been committed by some of the major players in the market to what would be available for a domestic supply. Of course, Hazelwood is closing down, and then outrageous statements are being made by the Treasurer that this is good for South Australia.

He says that Hazelwood closing down is going to be fantastic for South Australians and South Australian residents. Today, in question time, when asked on that exact point, he said, 'Well, we're going to have more generation here in South Australia, isn't that good?' Again, no mention that the price is going to be higher than we currently pay because of that base load power generated, yes, by coal, providing cheap supply into the grid.

What disturbed me most was our so-called Premier's treatment of federal colleagues in a very public way. If this is the standard that a premier sets for us in South Australia, then I am deeply concerned. Some people will praise that as, 'Good on you for standing up for South Australians,' but what it really means—and I will not use some analogies I have used around other sections—is that we are alienating the exact people and states that we have to work with to be part of the solution. COAG, believe it or not, is not the enemy: it is part of the solution going forward.

I thought I would do some research and give some notes to the Treasurer because often we are accused of coming into this house and contributing nothing to the debate in a constructive way. I certainly do not want to be accused of that. I have done a National Electricity Market 101 and I have noted some points. The National Electricity Market is not a national market but a series of five interconnected regions, with each region based on state boundaries. This means, to understand the operation of the NEM, it is better to think of how a single region operates.

On an interconnector, the electricity flowing from one region to another is bought in the exporting region at the price in the exporting region but paid for at the price in the importing region, which means that there can be different prices. The size of this mismatch and its timing and duration are all unknown, so this imposes a risk on retailers. Because of the risk, retailers develop their offers to consumers based on prices offered only by generators within the region where the consumer is based. This means that consumers in, let's say, South Australia, will only have prices offered to them based on prices offered by the generators operating in South Australia. Even though there might be some 600 to 800 megawatts of power entering South Australia from Victoria being paid for at Victorian prices, the value of this low-cost import has little impact on the prices paid to retailers by consumers.

There is also an assumption that interconnectors operate at their rated capacity all the time, but this is not the case. The actual flows on an interconnector are dependent on the networks in both the importing and exporting regions to operate at the rated capacity. For example, Murraylink is rated for 220 megawatts, but for much of the time when Murraylink is needed to operate at maximum capacity, network constraints in Victoria seriously limit its flow to South Australia. Interconnector capacity is also dependent on where in a region generators are dispatching from. For example, flows between Victoria and New South Wales are dependent on which of the Snowy generators are operating.

To increase the ability to trade between regions requires increased interconnection. The National Electricity Rules require any augmentation of interconnection to be assessed on a market benefit test. The impact of a market benefit test does not include the benefit consumers would gain from increased interconnection, even though consumers pay the cost of any increased interconnection. For example, if increased interconnection between South Australia and Victoria reduced the price of electricity for South Australian consumers by, say, $20 a megawatt hour, the value to consumers of this price reduction is not included in the assessment of whether the interconnector will provide a net benefit.

The NEM operates as an energy-only market, where generators are paid according to the amount of electricity they actually provide. In a capacity market, such as is used in most other world competitive electricity markets, generators are paid for being available to generate when needed—i.e., they are paid to be on stand-by—and for the amount they generate on top of that.

While the energy-only market has operated successfully in the NEM to now, it did so because there was little intermittent generation and a rising consumption. Now, with falling or flat consumption and increasing amounts of intermittent generation, the sales by intermittent generators are displacing sales from base load generators, which reduces their cash flow. Base load generators have low operating costs but high capital costs, so they need to have a high sales volumes to offset their fixed costs. Essentially, that is why Port Augusta power station went out of business.

Failing to get these high sales volumes, these base load generators to close or require a payment to be available. As I said before, a case in point is the closure of SA's Northern power station which, prior to its closing, had lost nearly 50 per cent of its sales and had insufficient sales to warrant the capital required to keep the plant in operation.

The NEM operates as a marginal price market where the price for all electricity sold is set at the price offered by the last generator dispatched. The alternative to this is the 'pay as bid' approach where generators get paid the price they offer to the market. If there is one take-home point from this entire speech I would like the Treasurer to look at, it is a pay as bid approach.

At the moment, the NEM operates on a bidding system where generators provide bids to the market offering a certain amount of energy for a set price for each five minutes of the day. The market operator (AEMO) matches all the volumes and prices offered and, depending on the forecast of demand for that five-minute period, sets the price for electricity for each five minutes. A generator might and often does—nearly always does—have multiple bids for each five minutes, with different amounts of energy for different prices.

A generator can change its bid at any time up to the start of each five-minute period. Specifically—and this is the important part—it can withdraw offers at a lower price and replace them with higher prices and so increase prices for the same energy it delivers. If a generator knows it has to be dispatched regardless of the price it offers to meet the regional demand, it can set its price for all the electricity it provides at the market price cap of $14,000 per megawatt hour.

For example, AGL's Torrens Island power station has nominally 1,260 megawatts of capacity. When the wind is not blowing and demand exceeds 2,000 megawatts, some of the units at Torrens Island power station must be dispatched regardless of the price it offers, so guess which price it offers. The rules of the market allow Torrens Island power station to withdraw offers it has previously made at lower prices and rebid them at higher prices.

Marginal pricing means that generators like intermittent wind generators, which bid into the market to be dispatched ahead of all other generators, rely on there being some thermal generation being dispatched to drive the market price up. This means that the benefit of high prices goes to all generators that are dispatched, making those wind farms even more profitable, as they also get renewable energy certificates.

For example, wind generation was profitable with a spot price of about $40 to $50 per megawatt hour when the value of the renewable energy certificates was added. With a spot price plus the now very high price for renewable energy certificates, wind farms have benefited massively from the closure of base load generation. In the early years of the NEM, most generators were independent of retailers—another very important point. This has changed dramatically and now most generation is owned by retailers.

The impact of this change is that the big three retailers—AGL, Origin and Energy Australia—along with Inergy, effectively control either directly or indirectly all retail activities. To provide pricing to the mass market, that is, small businesses and residential consumers, retailers build up a book based on various forms of generated contracts, including the buying and selling of their generation rights from the spot market.

There is a view that batteries or pumped hydro will solve the problem of intermittent generation. What is missing from this assessment is that batteries and pumped hydro do not generate new electricity: they merely store electricity generated elsewhere for use at a later time, so there has to be sufficient generation capacity to provide for the needs of the moment, plus additional generation to store generation for later use.

Currently in SA wind farms generate about 30 per cent of the total electricity injected into the grid. This means that for the grid supplies to be fully supplied by wind will require more than three times the number of wind farms to provide the electricity needed at any moment, plus for electricity to be stored for when the wind does not blow. The amount of storage will require batteries and pumped storage to be sized to store the surplus electricity needed for when the wind does not blow.

Records in South Australia show that there are times when there is little wind generation for periods of two to three days. This would mean that for South Australian average demand of about 15,000 megawatts and two days of no wind, and the interconnectors with Victoria providing, say, 600 megawatts, there would have to be over 40,000 megawatt hours of storage, or three million Tesla Powerwall 2 batteries.

The NEM has become more peaky in recent years, with the frequency of very high demands becoming less frequent. This raises the issue as to whether more generation should be provided to operate less often, whether there should be greater interconnection between regions so that electricity can be imported for those few occurrences, or whether consumers should lose supply when these peaks occur—something that I certainly would not support.

In closing, it is clear to me that some of the issues I have raised have never been discussed in this parliament, and if the Treasurer is serious about the price of power, not just the reliability, he will address some of these issues.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (17:27): Last September, when we had the statewide blackout caused by a storm of the proportions we have not seen before in terms of seven tornadoes hitting our state at the same time, including a twin tornado that the Bureau of Meteorology told us that they had never seen before, within hours we had the Prime Minister of our country out there blaming renewable energy. The following morning we had the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia out there blaming renewable energy and attacking South Australia as a state.

When the big floods hit Brisbane a few years ago, when Cyclone Tracey hit Darwin back in 1974, could we imagine our prime ministers of the day going into a state that is facing incredible challenges to get back on its feet after a big storm event, and criticising and kicking those people while they are down? The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of this country are a disgrace for the way they carried on after that storm in September last year.

I was in question time in Canberra last Wednesday, and still the Prime Minister and the federal energy minister were making jokes about South Australia, about 'can't keep the lights on'. We need better leadership in this country, and thank goodness we have good leadership at a state level, because there are a lot of things to blame for the situation we are in at the moment.

A lot of it has to go back to the then Liberal government selling off ETSA. Let us remember that under this Liberal government of the time the private sector all around the world looked to see what South Australia was selling because they got such great deals. Remember, they sold the TAB for two thirds of what it used to make us each year. They did a really bad deal on the sale of ETSA, an asset that belonged to the people of South Australia and should never ever have been sold.

We just heard the member for Mount Gambier say that he did not believe the way the Premier of South Australia spoke to the federal energy minister in Adelaide a couple of weeks ago. Well, this kowtowing to Canberra by the opposition in this state needs to stop. South Australians want South Australians to stick up for themselves, to stick up for their state and to make sure we have a bright future here, one where we are not faced with ridicule from our federal leaders, which is absolutely disgraceful behaviour. We do not want to be described as a state that cannot keep the lights on when it was because of things outside of our control. Instead of giving a hand, the federal government wants to blame us, and the state Liberal opposition wants to join them in that blame.

I was in Kingscote the day after the Premier had his words, quite publicly, with the federal energy minister. A man came up to me and said, 'Look, I don't always agree with Jay, but what he did yesterday was fantastic. It's about time people started sticking up for South Australia.' Then I went doorknocking, and it was the same sort of response in Kingscote.

The following Monday, the plan had come out, our state plan had come out. We were out there saying all these things that had happened, the national energy market, the faults with that are not our doing. We did not sell off ETSA, but we could not be out there blaming others because the people of South Australia looked to us as the elected government and they wanted us to take responsibility for what was happening. So our Premier, with the energy minister and the rest of cabinet, spent several weeks working on a way to address the issues our state faced.

On the following Monday, I walked into a cafe in Willunga and a woman called Ruth came up to me. She said, 'I think this is a great thing that the Premier has done, I like this energy plan, but we have only seen what we have seen on the television. Could you please send us some brochures, some information so that we can work our way through it?' I said, 'That's really funny, because I just got out of the car where I had been listening to the ABC news, and the member for Bragg was on there saying that the people of South Australia don't want another brochure.' Well, I reckon we might be more in tune with what the public of South Australia wants than those opposite.

I have mentioned the ridicule and the jokes and everything else that has been thrust upon our state by the federal leaders, something we have never seen before. No state has ever been bagged to the extent that our state has been by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister of the nation, never in the history of Federation. No-one has ever come out like that, at a time of need in a time when the lights are out because of a storm no-one has ever seen before, when we were out there with emergency crews trying to get people back on their feet.

How no-one died in that storm is a miracle, one that we are extremely grateful for, but to have the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister come out as they did upset a lot of South Australians. Those South Australians are angry, but they are also looking for someone to fix the problem, and I am proud to be a member of a cabinet that has addressed these issues. We have gone out there with a plan. There are many more months of work to be done to make sure that we fix this problem, but we will.

Today, the opposition lost the motion to adjourn the debate on this very significant subject. Then the Leader of the Opposition stood up and joined in with the jocularity of his Prime Minister and his Deputy Prime Minister, who he will never, ever stand up to because he kowtows to Canberra. He stood in here and said, 'Oh, I go interstate and people give me torches, because the lights might go out when I get home.' Well, Leader of the Opposition, it is no time for jokes. This is a very serious subject. Maybe the reason they give you a torch is because your nickname is 'hurricane lamp': you are dim and you need to be carried.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (17:34): I rise to speak on the Emergency Management (Electricity Supply Emergencies) Amendment Bill 2017, which was introduced by the Premier and which follows an announcement two weeks ago in respect of an energy plan, one plank of which was, and I quote from the material published:

Local Powers Over National Market.

Goal: Give South Australia greater local powers over national market operators and privately owned generators.

The State Government will legislate to ensure that South Australian energy users are not held hostage to unwarranted market behaviour.

The Minister for Energy will be given strong new powers to direct the national market in the case of an electricity supply shortfall.

Ministerial direction includes the ability to direct generators to operate and direct the Australian Energy Market Operator to control flow on the interconnector.

This will ensure every available option is activated to maintain the state's electricity supply in an emergency situation or when market forces fail.

Drafting of new legislation will begin immediately. The Minister's power will be used as a last-resort measure if the national market does not act in South Australia's best interests.

Two weeks later, we have presented to the parliament a bill which purports to introduce this brave, bold, new initiative, which has been described as standing up to the national market, standing up to Canberra, to provide powers to the Minister for Energy to protect us in certain circumstances.

The question I ask, and which I think the Minister for Energy must answer to the parliament, is: why has he not acted on the powers he already has? At the time of the four incidents—events, as they have been described—which relate to the failure in September last year and the consequential blackout, and the load-shedding events since, why has he not acted to do just that in respect of the powers that he already has? He does not want to answer that question—he does not want to tell us.

The government's answer is, to protect him from explaining to the people of South Australia why he has failed to act under the powers he already has, that there is no answer. In reality, I suggest this whole bill is a complete subterfuge to divert from the fact that the minister did not do anything, and he certainly did not act within the powers that he has. So, I raise the question of whether we need this bill, given that we already have the Essential Services Act 1981, which gives the minister power to do a number of things, and it has a ringing similarity to the bill that is currently before you.

The Essential Services Act 1981, which is an act to protect the community against interruption and dislocation of essential services, makes provision for essential services, which are defined to mean:

…a service (whether provided by a public or private undertaking) without which the safety, health or welfare of the community or a section of the community would be endangered or seriously prejudiced;

The proclaimed essential services are as defined, and they are conveniently listed in the Essential Services Commission Act 2002 as being: electricity services, gas services, water and sewerage services, maritime services, rail services, or any other services prescribed for the purposes of this definition.

The act gives the minister, via the state, the power to proclaim a declaration of a period which is defined in the opinion of the government where circumstances have arisen or are likely to arise that have caused or are likely to cause interruption or dislocation of essential services in the state, and it gives the power to issue that proclamation for a period of up to 14 days. After that, it essentially requires the concurrence of two houses of parliament, 14 days, and the declaration—the same that is currently being asked for in the bill. It gives the power for directions to be issued, and I quote from the act:

If, during a period of emergency, it is, in the opinion of the Minister, in the public interest to do so, the Minister may give directions in relation to the provision or use of proclaimed essential services.

It gives very severe penalties to anyone who fails to obey those directions, both to corporates and to an individual person. It gives the minister the power to take over the provision of the essential service. Indeed, it gives extra very specific powers to the minister to require any person who is, in the minister's opinion, in a position to do so or to furnish information as specified in the notice. Again, there is the obligation to provide information. It gives the minister the power to fix prices, to stop profiteering under the act, and it authorises a number of officers to be able to carry out the terms of implementing those directions. It gives a delegation power, and it gives very considerable powers to deal with the continuation of an offence in breach of that.

The only thing which is not in this act, which currently gives the minister the power to act, is the clause in the bill that is before us which gives an exemption of liability. If the government wants to do that, if it wants to hide behind the protection in those circumstances, then of course they could have come in and amended the Essential Services Act which has been amended on a number of occasions since I have been here in the parliament—2004, 2005, 2009, 2011 and 2013. It has been contemporary to deal with exactly those circumstances.

Not once since September last year have I heard the Minister for Energy, or indeed the Premier, explain to the people of South Australia why they have not acted on this legislation. I will come to the briefing that was provided at 1 o'clock today on this bill. Not only are we in the absence of there being any explanation given to the people of South Australia, the only logical reason for the government to come in and say, 'We have to deal with this bill because it is part of our platform of our plan to deal with energy security in the state,' would be to pretend to South Australians that they actually need this legislation to be able to act.

It is their defence to the obvious question of why they failed to act over the past 12 months. I think we need to have those answers from the government. We need some explanation from the government about why they have failed to act. In the briefing that was provided on this bill, which incidentally did not show in the summary of bills to be debated this week by the government when it was transmitted to the opposition at 1.31pm on Friday. Some time in the last 48 hours or so the government decided that they would throw this bill in, given that on their published material they had only started to draft the bill at that time. It may be that it has taken two weeks to draft it and they had to finish it off over the weekend.

As has been clearly pointed out today, when they finally got it off the printer, not even a copy of it was conveyed to the opposition to say, 'For these reasons, we need to deal with it urgently.' I do not know that we are about to have a hot weather spell that would require us to have to deal with these powers. I say to the parliament that the minister has these powers already and he has not acted on them. He has not explained to you or anyone else in South Australia why he did not act.

Let's fast-forward to lunchtime today. We were given a briefing. We were going through the bill. I asked the question, 'Why is it that we need to have an amendment to the Emergency Management Act, which is a 2004 act, to deal with emergencies and what is to take place in a formula to deal with state emergencies? Why is it necessary for us to amend that act when we already have an Essential Services Act which gives very extensive powers to the government to act to protect South Australia?' The answer to the question was, 'We have subsequently introduced national laws in relation to a market for the provision of electricity services and, therefore, we need to amend an act, dated 2004, which comes after 1996, and we need to amend that act. Yes, possibly, we could have amended the Essential Services Act, but that predated the implementation of the national market.'

I do not know what school they went to, but if members look around they will see volumes of blue folders which incorporate the statutes of this parliament which we are bound by in South Australia. It does not matter whether it is the Constitution Act 1934 or whether it is the Education Act 1972 or the Essential Services Act 1981. They are valid laws. They operate, they are enforceable and they are accessible for the protection of citizens in South Australia when required. They set the statutory regime which is there until this parliament removes them or repeals them or they are struck down in a court.

I say to the Minister for Energy that it is about time he entered this debate and answered that valid question as to why he did not act back in September if he felt that either the AEMO or a generator had failed to act in the interests of South Australians, or had refused to do or not do a certain thing to ensure a continued supply of energy in South Australia. He has not done that to date, and he needs to do that.

Why has he not said to the Premier, 'I don't want to muck up your beautiful new blue plan. I don't want to make it look a bit weak. You have gone out there with this mantra of standing up to Canberra and so on, so we need this legislation. We need to get this through the parliament because we are paralysed with incapacity until this occurs'?

I say: what utter rot! These statutes are valid. They are there for good reason. They could have been acted on. I have reread these again today, and if there is a weakness in them in some way, then bring them back into the parliament and let's look at them. You could have stood up to these people, if that was your mantra. You could have done what you now say is necessary for you to do to stand up to these disorderly people who are holding you 'hostage to unwarranted market behaviour', to use the Premier's language.

The truth is they do not need this legislation. It is a complete subterfuge from the reality of the situation. They have utterly failed South Australians. The Minister for Energy has utterly failed South Australians. We can talk about all the debates that have gone on in here as the precursors to the disaster that we now have in South Australia—the critical situation we now have with an unreliable supply and a massive cost for an essential service in this state—but the real question that needs to be asked is: why are we even here debating this bill at all?

Why are we amending the Emergency Management Act when we already have the Essential Services Act, which is a valid piece of law? Why are we adding another model into the Emergency Management Act which, quite frankly, apart from adding in a few years ago a provision for a health emergency, is an act to establish strategies and systems for the management of emergencies in the state and for other purposes?

If we go back and read the reason we have the Emergency Management Act, it is to deal with emergencies like natural disasters and acts of terrorism. They are all listed in the act: explosions, fires, accidents, epidemics, pandemics, emissions of poisons, radiation or other hazardous agents, hijacks, sieges, riots, acts of terrorism and hostilities directed by an enemy against Australia. It is pretty clear what that act is supposed to be about.

The Essential Services Act is making sure that we have the powers vested in the government to act in a manner, in exceptional circumstances, to protect South Australians and to ensure that they continue to have a reliable essential service. It could not be clearer. Do not be fooled by this absolute smokescreen of required demand just because it fits in with the mantra of the Premier, who is trying to convince us as legislators that we need to act in legislation to be able to stand up to these parties who will hold us 'hostage to unwarranted market behaviour'. That power is there.

We need the Minister for Energy to come in here and explain why he did not act on it and what directions he would have issued if he had had that power which, for some reason, he is now telling the South Australian parliament he does not have. I suggest that the next aspect he needs to explain to us before we give him this power again is how he is going to implement it. How is he going to inform himself so that he will be more knowledgeable and more capable of making an assessment to essentially intervene in the marketplace, more than AEMO, more than the Essential Services Commission, which is also another agency of experts that we look to to protect us against the carnivorous conduct of profiteering private enterprises?

We have a whole structure of protection and we have a whole structure of experts, so how is the minister going to inform himself above those, or outside of those, to make a decision to direct AEMO or one of these scurrilous generators to do or not do a certain thing in an anticipated load-shedding moment? I hate to think. Is he just going to ring up the department and say, 'Well, what do you guys think? How am I going to avert this problem? I have asked AEMO to do something. Personally, I think they're on the wrong track and they're not going to do what I have asked them to do.'

I really am concerned that anybody in the Minister for Energy's role—not just the incumbent, but any individual—would be able to act in a manner, in such general terms, purportedly to protect South Australians having an energy supply at all. I would not be happy with the current one implementing it under the Essential Services Act, but my point is that it is already there. I think he needs to explain to South Australians what are the triggers, what are the consequences and who is going to mop up the mess if he errs, because at the moment, he is asking for your blessing in passing this statute to completely exonerate himself and all the other people who sit in cabinet who might support him in making a decision which he thinks is in your interest—but remember under this act he will have that power himself, not the cabinet.

I would not trust him as far as I could kick him. I am not prepared to accept that we even need to go down this line, to allow the Premier to give some chest-beating presentation to South Australia because he needs to do this to be able to stand up to those in the industry. We will have a lot of questions in committee and we will expect some answers.

The Hon. L.A. VLAHOS (Taylor—Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse) (17:52): I would like to talk for a moment about my electorate of Taylor. We have seen a very positive response to the state's energy plan. People have been walking past the office at Paralowie and they have been stopping to read the posters in the windows and having conversations with my electorate office staff. The comments in these settings, as well as on social media with my Facebook posts, show that people see clean energy as the way forward.

People want to see us move away from coal. When I travelled interstate recently, people from other states congratulated South Australia on its commitment to renewables. One constituent told us that he sent an email to the Premier to congratulate him on the plan (which in my electorate is not something that people normally do), saying that this is what the state needs. They are proud that someone is standing up for us against the federal government and understand that South Australia should come first for a change. Like many people commenting on social media, he was glad to see we had a strong Premier.

The Premier's decision to take charge of our own energy future has clearly been applauded by many. Of course, people in the northern suburbs are concerned about power prices and their household bills. They are the things that people in the north care about: the basics that affect their lives and that of their families every day. They understand that as part of the government's new energy plan we will see more competition in the electricity market, putting downward pressure on prices. As Minister for Disabilities and Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, I am principally concerned about the welfare of some of our state's most vulnerable people.

I am committed to ensuring that people are safe if the national energy operator does fail the people of South Australia again, and we suffer from further power outages before our new energy plan is fully implemented. The Department for Health and Ageing is currently developing an emergency plan for vulnerable persons across our community including those dependent upon equipment. Disability SA has reviewed backup power arrangements across disability service providers, both government and non-government. All providers are obliged to have backup plans in place and individual plans for clients relating to their individual needs.

A number of clients in Highgate are particularly dependent on equipment. Highgate has a number of systems in place to respond to unexpected emergencies, and this includes a backup generator that was installed in July 2016. This generator is tested each month. There are also backup batteries for ventilators. Other disability DCSI sites have business continuity plans in place that include arrangements for electrical outages.

No clients in a DCSI supported accommodation service or at Northgate are life-dependent on backup equipment. Disability SA clients living independently in the community who are dependent on equipment are supported to develop personalised emergency plans. The Glenside Health Service, James Nash House and mental health facilities located on hospital campuses are also well supported by backup emergency diesel generator systems. All public and commercial buildings are required to have a proportion of their lighting backed up by battery backup power providing luminance for a minimum of 90 minutes.

All exit lights have to have an extra 90 minutes of battery power backup. Batteries, as we know, are the way of the future; our plan talks about them extensively. Business continuity plans and contingency plans are in place to ensure continuity of residential and 24/7 drug and alcohol services across the state, both metro and country. These continuity plans will be reviewed and updated if necessary as part of the ongoing modernisation of the Department for Health emergency plans.

I am confident that South Australians living with a disability or suffering from mental health or drug and alcohol problems are properly protected as we move forward towards this cleaner energy future that our state wishes to, and strongly wants to, embrace, despite opposition from a noisy minority.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (17:57): We have had a rather historic day here today, but I rise to speak to the Emergency Management (Electricity Supply Emergencies) Amendment Bill 2017. I want to go into a little bit of the history of why we find ourselves here today: it is because of the state Labor government's headlong rush into renewables and not having a transition plan in place. It is just ridiculous that the 540-megawatt Northern power station—and in question time today the minister could not tell us how many megawatts it used to generate—was shut down last May, and it is only since then that we have had utter chaos inflicted on this state.

It was inflicted on businesses, households, the health system and the education system. Chaos was inflicted across this state because of a headlong rush by this state Labor Premier and his party into renewables. That is why we are here today, six months to the day after 28 September 2016. That was another historic day. We were sitting in the parliament, but it was an historic day for this state. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.