Power Infrastructure

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (15:03): A supplementary, sir, for the Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy: does the minister intend that the government will own the diesel generators like the gas plant or lease the diesel generators like the batteries?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy) (15:03): There are some fundamental misunderstandings about what we announced. It seems that everyone other than the opposition has read the government's energy plan, Our Energy Plan. What we said, first of all, was with the renewable technology fund we ought to help underwrite a battery. That means that the private sector would bid to build a battery and operate that battery, and the government would have a call on that battery perhaps 24 hours or 48 hours in advance, perhaps for ancillary services to bid into the market.

We would use that when we believed there might be load shedding or some other service required on behalf of the taxpayer that the market could not provide. That is not to say that we would spend all the money building the battery. We will be contracting with the owners of the battery to provide us a service. We said that on day one. Fundamentally, from day one, the opposition have misunderstood what that means.

Then we get to the diesel generators. We said we wanted to procure diesel generators over summer. We are not going to go out and buy diesel generators. We are asking for a service. We have gone out to the market to provide us a service and we are getting offers back. As we get offers back, I imagine that the assessment panel that is looking at the offers being offered to us by providers, some may have provided us options to own, some may have provided options for us to rent or lease. Of course, that will be considered independently of government.

We are going to own a generator. A generator is something that the government believes is very important for the long-term security of the people of South Australia. Importantly, I note that the opposition haven't ruled out privatising that generator if they are elected. With less than 10 months to the election, perhaps the opposition could tell us whether they will keep that generator in public hands or whether they will just revert back to form and privatise that generator.