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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-06-13 Daily Xml
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STATUTES AMENDMENT (NATIONAL ENERGY RETAIL LAW IMPLEMENTATION) BILL

Final Stages

Consideration in committee of the Legislative Council's message.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I move:

That the disagreement to the amendments be insisted on.

The government will not accept the amendments from the Legislative Council, and I wish to proceed to a deadlock conference.

Mr WILLIAMS: As much as the minister wishes not to support the amendments, I think he is fighting an uphill battle. The Liberal opposition believes that this legislation should be fair, and we will go as far as is necessary to ensure that it is fair. Fortunately, our colleagues from the minor parties and the Independents in the other place support us. This is simply about fairness. I am not surprised that this government is not concerned about fairness and will not support this. This government has made an art form out of not supporting any idea that comes from the opposition. That is the problem.

The minister said on public radio that he would fix this, but he still has not, and I have no faith that he will. I do not know that he ever intended to, because he certainly has not demonstrated that he was going to fix it. I repeat what I said in the house last time we talked on this matter and the minister took exception, and I have gone back to my office and checked: I wrote two letters to the minister on this matter prior to Christmas last year and I still have had no response to them.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Your office hasn't been contacted by my office about these letters; is that what you are saying?

Mr WILLIAMS: My office has contacted your office about those two letters. My office has contacted your office and we still have not had a response to the two letters, minister. Let us not be cute about this. My office has tried to follow up with your office to get a response, but we still do not have a response.

When I write to a minister, I do expect to get a reply at some stage. In most cases the reply is totally unsatisfactory, but quite often I do get a reply from ministers in this government. I have not received a response from this minister, and I just point that out because the minister took exception when I raised this last time. I have gone back and checked it, and my memory did serve me well last time: my office has not received a response to those letters. That is why I have no faith, notwithstanding the minister saying on public radio that he was going to sort this out and fix the problem. He has not even responded to me. I do not believe that he has done anything to try to resolve this problem in a real and fair manner. So, the opposition will be pursuing—

Members interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: Absolutely. We just saw a demonstration in the house, which is quite interesting—

Mr Goldsworthy: Appalling behaviour.

Mr WILLIAMS: No; that the members of the opposition in general—not just the shadow minister—understand what is going on and they take notice of the legislation before the house. They have an understanding of it. That is why we are passionate about fairness in this place, because we understand what is going on.

The minister suggested that one of my colleagues did not know what was going on and what this was about. He is trying to judge the opposition, as he knows happens in his party, in that the minister is the only person who knows what is going on, if they are lucky. I think I have made the point that the opposition is serious about this matter because it is about fairness. The opposition does not want to do one thing that will increase the cost of electricity to the average consumer, but we are not going to throw away fairness to achieve that end.

I have pointed out that the government's own review into the feed-in tariff scheme made recommendations, including a recommendation that they change the legislation to include clauses which are very similar to what was in Victoria. There were two parts to it; that is, that the scheme would be capped and closed when either of two targets were met. One was reaching a certain ceiling of installed capacity, and the other was reaching a point of the cost impact on the average consumer.

The report pointed out that in Victoria that cost impact was set at a level of $10 per consumer, so that the total impact of the feed-in tariff in Victoria would not have more than a $10 impact on the average householder's electricity account. Have a guess how much the impact currently is in South Australia? Because the government failed to take note of its own review, and failed to put into the legislation the recommendations made by that review, the cost to the average consumer in South Australia today is $70.

Notwithstanding that, the opposition believes that the inequity delivered by the government, compounding its messing up of the review and the implementation of that, was compounded by the government setting the rules—establishing where the goalposts would be—on 30 September, the very last day the scheme was open, and thus disadvantaging a number of people who went out and spent significant amounts of money, in good faith. The opposition does not accept that we should turn our back on those people. We do believe in fairness, and that is why we think the government is seriously in error in not accepting these very wise amendments.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: If this bill passes in the state it is in, it will increase power prices for ordinary South Australians. That is the thing that the member for MacKillop has not told his party room; that is, this would increase the cost of power for ordinary South Australians because he wants to expand the scheme. The scheme is closed; the scheme has been settled. He wants to increase costs on ordinary South Australians. The government will not accept one extra dollar being imposed upon South Australians.

I think the opposition will insist on its amendments, and that is fine. He wants to increase the power costs for ordinary South Australians. He is the man who joined with the Greens to increase the scheme to 20 years, rather than five years. The Liberal Party is the party that has increased the feed-in scheme, but he gets up here today and complains about it. Are you aware that your amendment for this bill is a crown of thorns? You are the one who wants to increase power prices.

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I am not sure that the member for Kavel understands that—that the Liberal opposition has moved an amendment to increase power costs to ordinary South Australians. Did you understand that? Dazed and confused. The government will not accept one extra dollar being placed upon the burden of ordinary households in this state because of amendments moved by the member for MacKillop.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: And his colleagues in the upper house compounding what he claims is a problem. They have expanded the scheme to 20 years, and now they want to expand the scheme even more. We will not allow an extra dollar to be placed on the cost of electricity bills for ordinary South Australians. This bill ensures a cost going on people's everyday bills. The government will insist upon the amendments being disagreed with.

Mr WILLIAMS: I cannot leave that diatribe unchallenged.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Of course you won't.

Mr WILLIAMS: No, of course I won't. The 20-year extension had nothing to do with increasing the cost to South Australians. The 20-year extension—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: You would have solved that problem if you had taken notice of your own review, as I just pointed out, minister. That is what happened in Victoria; that is what other jurisdictions have been grappling with. You completely lost control of the scheme; that is what has happened here. Let me point out a couple of errors of fact. The Liberal opposition is not seeking to extend the scheme. All we are seeking to do is to offer fairness and equity to people who, in good faith, signed up and paid their money before the scheme closed.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Not true.

Mr WILLIAMS: That is true, minister. We are not seeking to allow anyone who had not signed up before 30 September last year into the scheme, and the minister would have the house believe otherwise. That is an error of fact. What the Liberal Party did do, when moving amendments to this legislation, was successfully move an amendment to prevent the government from increasing the price of electricity, of the feed-in tariff, paid back to everyone on the scheme by a further 10¢.

The government wanted to increase the feed-in tariff from 44¢ to 54¢. I believe the cost of that would have been $90 million. The minister has the temerity to say that we are moving amendments that will increase the cost. I am very proud that we moved amendments that were accepted by the other place and that were eventually accepted by the government to reduce the cost to electricity consumers in South Australia by $90 million. The matter that we are debating now will, unfortunately, have a cost impact; it will be minimal. I suspect—

Members interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: Of course it will have an impact. Fairness sometimes comes with a cost, not that you would know anything about that. I have never argued that it would not have a very minimal cost; I suspect it will be in the tens, or maybe the odd hundred, of thousands of dollars, not the millions. We have saved $90 million on the scheme, $90 million.

I think the minister just said $1.6 million. I am trying to verify those figures as we speak; we are seeking some further information but, on the numbers that the minister gave to the house the last time we debated this, I suspect that is grossly exaggerated. We are talking a small handful of people; I think it is something like 20 people who might get onto the scheme, and I do not think those 20 people will be in receipt of $1.6 million, to be quite honest. We are talking about a few thousands of dollars.

I am very proud that, in the first instance, when we first debated this legislation I made the comment to the house that this whole feed-in tariff scheme was about a headline, not about anything else, that it was going to impose costs on electricity consumers and that the parliament and the government needed to regularly revisit it to keep a watch on the costs getting out of hand. I was always aware that there was going to be a problem, and I point out to the house that the government said it would hold a review when the installed capacity reached 10 megawatts.

That happened in May 2009 and the review did not start until October 2009; I think it was either the last or the second last day in October. The review was supposed to report back before the end of 2009. I think the community of South Australia at least expected that the government might have said something about it in the election campaign of 2010, but it did not. The first time the community of South Australia heard anything from the review was on 31 August 2010.

The next utterance we heard, and the first time the parliament was apprised of the matter, was early in 2011 when legislation was brought to the parliament. That legislation included the clause to increase the feed-in tariff from 44¢ to 54¢. It did not include any caps to close the scheme down, to limit the cost on electricity consumers, as we recommended in the review. The opposition takes no responsibility for the cost impost that this mess of the government's own making has caused to electricity consumers in South Australia.

Notwithstanding that, the opposition stands by the principle of fairness and equity. That is what this is about. It is about a few thousand dollars to achieve fairness and equity for a handful of people whom this government has no care for. This government has shown that it is incompetent when it comes to managing this scheme, just as it has shown that it is incompetent when it comes to managing the state's finances. Now it has shown that it has absolutely no heart. It is a shame.

Motion carried.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Manufacturing, Innovation and Trade, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (12:05): I move:

That a message be sent to the Legislative Council requesting a conference be granted to this house respecting certain amendments from the Legislative Council in the bill, and that the Legislative Council be informed that, in the event of a conference being agreed to, this house will be represented at such conference by five managers and that Ms Bettison, Mr Odenwalder, Mr Whetstone, Mr Williams and the mover be managers of the conference on behalf of the House of Assembly.

Motion carried.

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