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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-06-04 Daily Xml
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ELECTRICITY (FEED-IN RATES) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Second reading.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (11:26): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill, like the earlier matter, has come from the other place. In fact, I have great pleasure in sponsoring this bill through this house after it was moved in the other place by the Hon. Mark Parnell, representing the Greens. It is in consequence of legislation passed through the parliament that established a feed-in scheme to encourage people to put photovoltaic cells on their properties to produce electricity. The feed-in scheme principally ensures that those people get a price for the electrons they generate and feed back into the electricity grid, a premium price compared to the general price of electricity.

In reality, the scheme that was introduced by the government of South Australia is seriously flawed. It is a net feed-in scheme as opposed to what should be (as is generally argued by the industry) a gross feed-in scheme, and I will talk about that as I move on through the debate. The other problem with the feed-in scheme we have here in South Australia is that it was established not to promote a growth in the renewables industry but to promote the Premier and his so-called green credentials. The legislation we brought in had one motive behind it, and that was so that the Premier could stand up and claim—as he did in this house in Tuesday this week in a ministerial statement—that this is the first jurisdiction in Australia to have a feed-in scheme. That is the problem: the Premier, the man who says 'action now for the future', actually means 'action now for my benefit'.

This parliament passed legislation that allowed the Premier to promote himself rather than give a proper incentive to those who wish to do the right thing by the environment and invest money to install photovoltaic generators on their properties, utilise that electricity and feed it into the scheme but also achieve a reasonable pay-back time, one that is significantly less than the life of the photovoltaic cells they install. Without a feed-in scheme that was the problem, the pay-back time for a photovoltaic system was probably in the order of 20 to 30 years and the actual life expectancy of photovoltaic cells that are available on the market today is a similar period—probably 25 to 30 years. So, there was no financial incentive at all for people to install photovoltaic generators.

Debate adjourned.

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