State Energy Plan

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:44): My question is to the Minister for Energy. Will the minister now apologise to the people of South Australia for lying to them last night on the news when he said he couldn't disclose the cost of purchasing the new generators?

The SPEAKER: Although the Hon. Michelle Lensink has managed to get a ruling in the other place that calling someone a liar or accusing them of lying is parliamentary, that is an innovation we don't have in the House of Assembly, so the leader will immediately rise and withdraw and apologise.

Mr MARSHALL: I withdraw and apologise, sir.

The SPEAKER: Thank you. Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Minister for the Arts) (14:45): The only apology due to the people of South Australia is from the Liberal Party for privatising ETSA. That is the root cause of all of the problems that we have with the South Australian part of the energy market. A second apology is owed by the federal Liberal government for prevaricating over putting a price on carbon and presiding over, essentially, the dysfunction of the national energy market. What the South Australian government is doing, in the interests of this state, is standing up for the people of South Australia and taking charge of our energy future.

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Premier will be seated. I give the Leader of the Opposition as much scope as possible, as I say, to be the locomotive of the opposition, but that does not involve screeching at the top of his voice across the divide between the government and the opposition. So if the leader interjects one more time, I will name him. I won't remove him under the sessional order: I will name him. Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. An important piece of information is that straight after the media conference, where we were pressed to disaggregate the various elements of the energy plan, the representatives from APR came up to both the Minister for Energy and myself and thanked us and expressed their gratitude for not revealing the commercial-in-confidence nature of that material. This of course—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: We gave, of course, the overall—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: As is our responsibility, we gave the overall budget—$550 million. Of course, the funding is within that overall envelope, but to disaggregate it would put this company at a competitive disadvantage as it seeks to bid across the nation. The truth is we got a great deal and other places may not get the same deal that we got. They want to reserve their rights to be able to bid into other contractual arrangements. The truth is the message is getting through to the other jurisdictions that there is trouble all around the National Electricity Market. Their services are in high demand, let me tell you, and that is because we have a dysfunctional National Energy Market, where unfortunately temporary measures are necessary to deal with the reserve shortfalls.

The one advantage I had yesterday was that I was able to announce my energy plan here in South Australia. If the Leader of the Opposition wanted to announce his energy plan, he would have to go to Sydney, because it involves plugging into an interconnector in Sydney. Let's just see how Sydney goes during this summer. We are taking steps to secure South Australian energy for South Australians. We will have a publicly owned power plant—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —and those opposite will sell it at the first opportunity.