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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-11-12 Daily Xml
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ELECTRICITY ASSETS

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (15:33): The Liberal Party has released its policy for empowering the consumer. On the weekend, the Sunday Mail ran an article where I comment on the dot point that the Leader of the Opposition put in his policy, which states, 'Changes to state regulatory arrangements and network business ownership.' That regulatory reform has come out of a policy from the Productivity Commission to encourage states that own their assets to break up their ownership. I see the Leader of the Opposition nodding, saying that he understands that.

South Australia has no power to compel New South Wales and Queensland to sell their assets. That Productivity Commission recommendation is speaking directly to those jurisdictions. The shadow energy minister just came into the parliament now and said that I wanted to nationalise ETSA. It is a bizarre, weird claim, based on absolutely no evidence or facts. I can only think that he is making a desperate attempt to undo this very large mistake indeed.

The idea is that this state government, or a future state government, would change state regulatory arrangements and network business ownership for assets that are already privatised. That means that a future Marshall government will use its regulatory powers to forcibly get privately owned institutions to have their ownership broken up. There are only two ways to do that; that is to compulsorily acquire those assets and then sell them, or to force them by legislation to be broken up. Either way, it would expose the state to massive risk.

I am not the one who has cut and pasted this from the Productivity Commission and made it my own; it is the opposition. You would expect this sort of mistake from a first-term rookie and people with only 3½ years' experience, but it would not be so funny if the Liberal Party of South Australia did not want to make him the next premier of South Australia. The reality is this: when you cut and paste Productivity Commission recommendations and put them in your policy documents as gospel, saying that you will change state regulatory arrangements and network business ownership, what you are saying to people who have invested money in this state is that their investment is not safe, that their investment will be broken up.

Quite frankly, if this was the type of mistake that I had made as a minister, I would be resigning today. This is not only plagiarism, it is plagiarism talking about the wrong state, which is even worse. Again, for whatever reasons, the opposition is maintaining this position. I think it is now incumbent upon the opposition to explain what changes to state regulatory arrangements and network business ownership mean, because the way the standing committee of the energy and resources minister works is that I cannot compel two sovereign states like Queensland and New South Wales to sell their assets. I cannot do that at all, and no state regulatory powers that I have here will facilitate that.

I am not sure what it is the member for Waite has done in his sloppy and lazy policy formulation, but it needs to be changed and changed quickly. I have to say that if you are going to just cut and paste policy Productivity Commission recommendations and put them into your policy and say that you have come up with them, you had better reference that and say they are from the Productivity Commission. If you are talking about a benefit for South Australian consumers by New South Wales and Queensland selling their assets, then say that.

It is not hard to say that a future Marshall government will encourage other states to privatise their assets or benefits for South Australian consumers if that is what they believe, but do not put in your policy that you will change state regulatory arrangements and network business ownership. I can tell you what this means for SA Power Networks and ElectraNet: it means it will force them to sell their assets. When the assets were privatised, the business was already broken up, and they are intending to do it again.

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