Legislative Council Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2) 53 2 Parliament of South Australia Legislative Council published Question Time Energy Market Energy Market The Hon. G.E. GAGO Legislative Council Energy Market The Hon. G.E. GAGO (14:56): Supplementary: is it true that the federal minister for Port Adelaide, Mr Mark Butler—is his statement true? Members interjecting: The Hon. G.E. GAGO Legislative Council The Hon. G.E. GAGO: The federal member for Port Adelaide. Members interjecting: The President Legislative Council The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. G.E. GAGO Legislative Council The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Is his claim true that the highest price rises for electricity over the past decade occurred in the three states with the highest reliance on coal power and the lowest on renewables: New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria? Members interjecting: The President Legislative Council The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. I.K. HUNTER Legislative Council Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:57): It is true— Members interjecting: The President Legislative Council The PRESIDENT: Order! The minister has the floor. The Hon. I.K. HUNTER Legislative Council The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: It is true, I think, that Mark Butler has received that advice. I have certainly seen that advice. I don't want to play politics with energy markets; that's something that the Liberal Party does in this state. That's what the Liberal Party does: they ignore the facts, they ignore the market, they ignore the experts, they set out their own political objectives and then cherrypick what they can find to support their very flimsy articles or their positions. How flimsy is it? They go back to a 2003 report. That's how flimsy their policy position is: they have to go back to a 2003 report to cherrypick something they think will support an argument, whereas the rest of Australia stands with us. We want rational, expert advice to be put in place to drive a national energy market. We have the electricity generators in this country, for goodness sake, saying, 'We need a national energy policy. Please, Prime Minister, give us a consistent national energy policy.' The Australian Energy Council represents electricity generators. Its chief executive, Mr Matthew Warren, told InDaily: …Australia's electricity sector needed billions of dollars of new investment—and that required nationally co-ordinated energy and climate policy. 'We operate in a national electricity market which benefits from a national approach to energy, he said. 'We think energy policy is most efficiently and effectively delivered at the national level, with the co-ordinated support and input of state and federal governments. 'State-based targets may be in part borne out of frustration at a lack of progress at the national level.' This is the electricity generators begging the federal government to try to work with us and understanding why the states have frustration at the national government not involving itself in sorting out what is a national problem. And the article continues: He added that the energy industry 'has always advocated for a market-based policy that targets emissions reduction, rather than backing any technology'. What more can I say? This state government stands with our energy industry experts, our chief scientists, understanding that a market-based mechanism on emissions intensity will be the best, cheapest and most effective way of transitioning us to a clean, green electricity system which, by the way, is exactly what the federal government has signed us up to by signing the COP21 accords in December in Paris. The federal government has set the policy objectives and has not given us any levers to actually get there. No wonder they have been creating this black hole in energy policy, which the states have been filling with the only way to get to Paris. The only way the federal government were able to meet the objectives they have signed in an international covenant is to actually join the states and adopt our energy emissions intensity scheme and our green energy targets.