Electricity Interconnector

Ms LUETHEN (King) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Energy and Mining. Will the minister update the house on the progress and delivery of the government's interconnection policy?

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:51): Thank you very much, member for King—another very, very hardworking, very focused, very well connected with her electorate first-term Liberal government MP asking a very relevant question because electricity is one of the greatest failings of the previous Labor government. It is one of the biggest jobs that we have in front of us, but we do have a plan, and the member for King is very focused on how we will deliver our plan.

Interestingly, what she is asking for is an update on progress of delivering the plan, and that is the type of focus we've got on this side of the chamber. You have seen us work through our 100-day plan. We say we will do things, we get on and get busy, take good advice, work hard and then we do deliver them, and this issue will be absolutely no different.

We have had the ElectraNet draft report, which has been very positive. It endorsed, it validated, that one component of our election policy. Of course, there were several others, there still are several others but, with regard to interconnection, where do we go from here? Well, discussions have already taken place with ElectraNet. Discussions have already taken place with TransGrid, which is the company on the New South Wales side of the border which owns and operates their high-voltage transmission lines.

Both those organisations have been working very closely together and both have been very positive with regard to the involvement they have had with the South Australian government about how together they might deliver that transmission line. We are looking at the timing of it: what can we possibly do to get an interconnector up and running, actually working and delivering for South Australians as quickly as possible?

The previous government was very happy just to let things roll, let things roll, let things roll. The then leader of the opposition, now Premier, directly, through parliament, through media, every way possible, told the then Labor government what problem was coming. He told them what problems were going to be there. He went to the minister, he went to the then premier and he explained the issues that needed to be dealt with, and they just ignored him. They turned their back, they looked the other way and pretended that it wasn't real. Well, it was real, and all South Australians have paid for it.

We are not going to take that approach. We want to get this interconnector up and running as quickly as possible. We have a $200 million interconnection fund—money which we pledged before the election, money which we still have now, obviously, in the Treasurer's hands, to make sure that we can deliver upon this.

ElectraNet has recommended so far a 330-kilovolt interconnector between, as I said before, Robertstown and the Wagga districts more broadly, to go through the Riverina part of New South Wales. We need to assess whether this 330 is just exactly right. We need to assess how it will work with other parts of our energy solution, which we are working on very rapidly as well—the household storage plan, the grid-scale storage, the trials for demand management, for demand aggregation and for supply integration. We are determined to make sure that they all fit.

One of the most interesting things, which comes back to the member for King's question about what we are going to do to deliver this and how we are going about it, is focusing on a range of other options which were not part of our policy. It is very important to highlight for the chamber that in ElectraNet's draft report it says very clearly that they considered all other non-network solutions, and none of them—none of them—came close to delivering lower electricity prices and more stability in the electricity supply for South Australians. None of them were anywhere close to what interconnection between South Australia and New South Wales would be.