Alinta Energy

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): My question is to the Premier. Given that Alinta's offer to the government in May 2015 would have secured 520 megawatts of constant electricity supply until at least June 2018, when will the government's 200 megawatts of temporary diesel generation become available?

Ms Sanderson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Adelaide is warned.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy) (14:23): First and foremost, there is no guarantee that we would have had any of those megawatts over that period, and Alinta made that clear. They made it clear that they couldn't guarantee being operational for three years; indeed, to satisfy the government they were offering clawbacks because they might actually close it, and they had no board approval for the ask they were seeking from us.

So Alinta were not able to offer us what we needed to get through the failure of the National Electricity Market, where you are seeing across jurisdictions from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria the coal operators creating scarcity by pulling coal out of the system to try to increase the pool price. We are seeing forward prices now in New South Wales and Victoria above $100. Those levels are unacceptable. Indeed, this is after the abolition of the carbon tax when we were all told that by abolishing the carbon tax, power prices would drop. Well, how has that gone? How is that going?

The SPEAKER: Minister, you will cease expatiating about Alinta and coal and line up your remarks with the question, which was about diesel.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Yes, sir—and Alinta. The generation that we are seeking, we have not specified a type of fuel that we want to be used to be burnt to provide us with—

Mr Pisoni: Try snake oil.

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley is warned, and because I have warned him his interjection will get on Hansard. Treasurer.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Thank you, sir. There you go, there it is. Scratch a little under the surface and out it comes: fish and chip shop, taxi. Scratch and it comes to the surface. That is the party you lead. I have to say that—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey is warned for the second and final time, and the member for Wright is warned.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The generation we are bringing in is all about making sure that South Australians will have the security that they need that the National Electricity Market cannot deliver us because the market is broken. We want it in place by 1 December, so we are going through a procurement process with South Australian Power Networks to attempt to see what we can get in place. There have been a number of options that are being put forward—some gas, some diesel, some biomass—so, what you are seeing is a real diversity of options being offered.

But of course we are not just relying on that temporary generation, we also have our tender out for our battery. We want our battery in place as quickly as possible to meet that shortfall, but unfortunately there was nothing that could have guaranteed that shortfall of supply that was in this letter from Alinta.