House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-11-19 Daily Xml

Contents

ELECTRICITY (WIND POWER) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 29 October 2009. Page 4552.)

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (10:39): I thank the whip for allowing me to make a very short contribution to this bill because I really do have a personal feel about it. I congratulate the member for Finniss on this bill. It is not complicated at all. Just as there is a feed-in tariff for solar power, this bill seeks to accommodate small wind turbines to the feed-in tariff as well.

I wondered whether this was a deliberate oversight in the original legislation or whether it was intentional and, if so, why? Currently, there is no capacity for energy generated from a small wind turbine to be fed back into the system in the same way as photovoltaic cells. There are people in South Australia keen to develop an industry here that can produce and build these small-scale wind turbines, which in turn would develop jobs and strengthen the state's economy.

We have a strong history in this area. A company (and I will name the company), Dunlite, has made generators in this state for 70 or 80 years. In fact, we all had these Dunlite generators on our farms before the Playford government put us on the grid back in the 1950s; so we have history here. This bill is common sense. If you can have a feed-in tariff for energy generated by the sun, why not for energy generated by the wind?

I commend the member for Finniss for this legislation. It should be supported. It sends all the right messages. I hope the government will support the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.