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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-03 Daily Xml
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NATIONAL ENERGY RETAIL LAW (SOUTH AUSTRALIA) (IMPLEMENTATION) AMENDMENT BILL

Final Stages

Consideration in committee of the Legislative Council's amendment.

(Continued from 1 May 2012.)

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I move:

That this house disagrees with the amendment made by the Legislative Council but makes the following alternative amendment in lieu thereof:

Clause 4, page 11, after line 26—Insert:

29A—Review

(1) The Commission must conduct a review of the operation of the National Energy Retail Law in South Australia after the expiry of 2 years from the date fixed under section 4.

(2) The review must focus on the impact of the National Energy Retail Law on consumers of energy and whether the implementation of the Law has—

(a) resulted in increased efficiencies; or

(b) adversely affected customer protection in pursuit of national consistency,

and may address such other matters as the Commission thinks fit.

(3) The Commission must prepare a report on the outcome of the review and provide a copy of the report to the Minister.

(4) The Minister must, within 6 sitting days after receiving a report under subsection (3), have copies of the report laid before both Houses of Parliament.

(5) The Commission must, between the date fixed under section 4 and the completion of the review under this section, publish, on a quarterly basis, statistics about the de-energisation of premises due to inability to pay energy bills during each quarter, unless the Commission is satisfied that the AER publishes comparable statistics on a quarterly basis.

Whilst the government does not consider it necessary to impose a legislative requirement for the Essential Services Commission of South Australia to undertake a review of the implementation of the National Energy Retail Law, the government accepts that the amendment passed in the other place provides certainty regarding review timing and content. Accordingly, subsections (1) to (4) of this amendment are identical to that passed in the other place.

The amendment to subsection (5) also required that the commission must publish quarterly statistics about the disconnection of premises due to inability to pay energy bills. The government notes that under the national framework the Australian Energy Regulator is required to publish an annual retail market performance report which will include information and statistics on the number of premises disconnected for non-payment.

In addition, the Australian Energy Regulator is intending to publish quarterly information on the performance of the energy retail market, including the number of disconnections for non-payment and reconnections. However, there is no legislative requirement for the Australian Energy Regulator to do so.

To ensure that the commission and the Australian Energy Regulator are not performing duplicative functions and incurring duplication costs, this amendment makes it clear that the commission is not required to publish quarterly statistics on the disconnection of premises due to inability to pay energy bills if the AER is publishing statistics on a quarterly basis.

The government's amendment to subsection (5) is satisfactory to the mover of the original amendment in the other place and I, therefore, commend the amendment to the house and thank the Hon. Mark Parnell and, for that matter, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in this house, for their willingness to negotiate swiftly with the government on this matter.

Mr WILLIAMS: The opposition will be supporting the government's amendment, and we are delighted that the government has accepted the principle of the amendment moved in the upper house and supported by the opposition in that place. We accept the wise further amendment to that amendment by the government to ensure that there is not a duplication. The intent was always just to make sure that the information about disconnections was made freely available to the public and the outcome is the same and there will be no duplication by ESCOSA to the AEMO. So the opposition is quite happy to support the amendment as proposed by the minister.

Motion carried.

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