Power Prices

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): My question again is to the Premier. Is the Premier taking any action to reduce the price of power for South Australian businesses, including regional businesses? If so, what action and when? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA:The Advertiser reported today that leading regional South Australian businesses have been hit with surging power bills as the country's highest electricity costs cripple the agriculture industry and send staple produce prices soaring.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:24): I saw that report in The Advertiser today and it was very disturbing. I called Ben from Nippy's and I had a conversation with him today, and I spoke to him about what was occurring. It's a story of a lot of businesses across the country. This is not a problem isolated to South Australia; this is a problem across the entire country. One of those problems is, of course, the increasing cost of gas.

What's occurring is that companies like Nippy's, companies across the country, have been on fixed-price contracts with their retailers and some of them are attempting to go onto the spot market. I understand that with Nippy's, without going into too much detail, they have three price contracts at some of their sites. They have two fixed contracts and one is on the spot market. Of course, on the spot market you are open to some of the fluctuations in the wholesale market, which can see a lot of discrepancy between prices. So I have spoken to Ben and we have exchanged numbers.

The government is committed to making sure that family businesses like that across South Australia of course are top of mind of the commonwealth government who brought in capped price controls in the gas market. What a lot of people do realise is that the gas market is what is driving up those firming costs of renewable energy. Renewable energy plummets prices of power. When, of course, the renewable energy is not available, gas seeks to make a return on that rent and they do charge a lot. You can see it in the reports recently, from AGL right through to Origin, of massive profits for those companies—huge bonuses for their executives and, of course, big shareholder returns, which is showing that the gas market is making big profits for energy companies.

What we need is a consolidated bipartisan approach to make sure that renewable energy can smash that monopoly market that gas has here in South Australia. The first thing you can do is make sure that gas is more available. There are shortages of gas across the country, and I find it a bit tough to be lectured by members opposite—who have banned fracture stimulation in the second largest basin in South Australia for gas extraction—and to then complain about gas prices.

Quite frankly, I would have thought one of the things that people like Tony Pasin and the shadow minister would be keen on would be to see more gas out of the ground, to see a more liquid supply of that commodity in the Australian market and to see those prices fall. Instead, what they do is put restrictions on it and then complain about the consequences. Quite frankly, I think what we need here is more renewable energy and not less. The idea that you would blame renewable energy for the cost of increased power prices is quite frankly untrue.