Home Battery Scheme

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:25): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister for Energy and Mining. Can the minister please update the house on how the Home Battery Scheme has been received and are there any alternate views?

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:25): Thank you to the member for Morphett for this important question. He has followed our energy policy very closely since well before the last election. Our Home Battery Scheme is actually, I have to say, going pretty well. We are cautious and we want to make sure it rolls out, but we are ahead of our benchmarks. We are pleased with how it is all going.

Of course, as well as wanting to reduce electricity prices for those households that acquire the batteries and potentially the solar panels as well, with our up to $6,000 per household subsidy and the low-interest loans that we have been able to deliver with the support of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation—a combined $200 million investment in South Australia to drive down electricity prices for those households. Of course, all other households will benefit as well by having the 40,000 households that we supply this equipment to off the grid, or at least pulling less from the grid at high-peak demand times.

As well as that, we have managed to bring three new battery assemblers and manufacturers into the state: Sonnen, a well-known German company; Alpha ESS, a Chinese company; and Eguana, a Canadian company—so three companies from three different countries, all choosing to invest in South Australia and all saying they are doing that because of our Home Battery Scheme. As well as the key focus on the price of electricity, we are creating, in partnership with those companies, in excess of 800 new jobs in South Australia, of which 430 plan to be at the old Holden site at Elizabeth.

It is very pleasing for all South Australians, I am sure, but particularly for local, former Holden employees to see manufacturing coming back into their area. When the Premier and I were at the Sonnen factory about a week and a half ago, it was terrific to meet so many former Holden employees now employed on exactly the same site with Sonnen due to this Marshall Liberal government program.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: Some of them were building buses until you shut that contract down.

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Lee!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: As well as that, RateSetter have brought 194 jobs into South Australia; that is the company that supports the financial platform that is so important in making sure that the subsidies are paid appropriately and that the loans are made available appropriately. One of the key features of this program is that people can apply for the loans, provide all their information over the phone and/or on the internet, and they can actually get a provisional approval for their loan. Of course, they do need to come back and provide the information that they have provided on the phone in a more concrete form to be absolutely sure that it's all 100 per cent accurate and appropriate, but they can get a provisional approval for a low-interest loan.

Part of the question was: are there any alternate views? There are some complementary views. Queensland and Victoria have both announced schemes similar to ours, after ours. They have seen the merits of it and decided to copy. Federal Labor have decided to announce a scheme very similar. So that is federal Labor and Labor Queensland. But there is one alternate view, and that is that of the South Australian Labor opposition: they still don't want our policy to get this support.

The SPEAKER: The minister's time has expired.