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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-09-27 Daily Xml
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Power Outages

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy) (14:06): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Tomorrow will mark one year since South Australia was struck by an unprecedented weather event, where seven tornadoes destroyed the spine of our transmission network, sending the state's electricity network cascading to system black. At about 3.48pm on 28 September last year three major 275 kV lines and 22 transmission towers in five separate locations were crushed by the strength of the wind, leaving households and businesses across the state without power. Some were not reconnected for several days.

The nation's weather bureau described the event as 'multiple supercell thunderstorms which produce damaging to destructive winds, very large hailstones, locally intense rainfall, and at least seven tornadoes with wind speeds rated as between 190 and 260 km/h'. The cause of the system black has been investigated by numerous federal agencies, including the Australian Energy Market Operator, it has been debated in parliament, it has been the subject of many misguided conspiracies and, of course, it also led to the Prime Minister of this country ridiculing our state.

The federal government, overseen by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, made a deliberate choice to ridicule our state in an attempt to damage our reputation during a time when the people of South Australia were dealing with disaster and personal difficulty. As this state has gone from being the butt of jokes, from the Prime Minister to the national leader in energy policy, tomorrow is also a day that Malcolm Turnbull should apologise to the people of South Australia. He should apologise for choosing to criticise our state rather than showing real leadership and offering help.

Mr PISONI: Point of order: copies are not distributed to members of parliament.

The SPEAKER: Yes, it is a very fair point of order by the member for Unley. I was wondering that myself, whether there were copies.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: There are copies on their way, sir.

The SPEAKER: That is not really satisfactory.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Would you like me to start again later, sir?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I'm sorry, member for Unley?

Mr PISONI: I withdraw leave until the copies arrive.

The SPEAKER: Withdrawing leave for a ministerial statement is bold, but—

The Hon. J.W. Weatherill interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I couldn't possibly comment on the wisdom of the Premier's interjection.

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Was that the minister for Wright interjecting? I call to order the member for Wright. Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

The SPEAKER: You seek leave to perhaps continue a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Tomorrow will mark one year since South Australia was struck by an unprecedented weather event, where seven tornadoes—

The SPEAKER: Treasurer, I don't really think it is necessary to go back to the beginning.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: As this state has gone from being the butt of jokes from the Prime Minister to the national leader in energy policy, tomorrow is also the day that Malcolm Turnbull should apologise to the people of South Australia. He should apologise for choosing to criticise our state, rather than showing real leadership and offering help. He should apologise for misleading the people of this nation in an effort to damage one state's reputation, and he should apologise for his government's continued lack of leadership in the energy market, which has led to unsustainably high prices and an increasingly uncertain and scarce electricity supply.

While the cause of this incident on 28 September was a severe weather event, it was the first in a series of events that confirmed the national energy market was broken and no longer serving the interests of South Australians. Since that time, and in the absence of national leadership, the state government has been methodically and prudently implementing our own comprehensive energy plan, released in March this year. Every single aspect of this plan has been implemented or is progressing on time and on budget, including:

the construction of a 100-megawatt grid-connected battery by Tesla and Neoen at Jamestown is well advanced, with installation of the battery underway;

the construction of the state-owned power plant is well underway, with foundations for the turbines and transformers at Lonsdale and Elizabeth nearly complete. The aeroderivative gas turbines arrived at Port Adelaide on schedule and have now been transferred to the sites and will be ready to provide emergency power to the state, if needed, by 1 December;

the parliament passed legislation to ensure the Minister for Energy was given additional powers to direct the market operator or generators in the event of a supply shortfall to avoid load shedding to South Australians;

in a deal, which is believed to be the first of its kind, a solar thermal plant will be built at Port Augusta following the tender for the government's own energy supply. This new generator will also increase competition in the state's energy market;

given the commonwealth government's ongoing refusal to implement a clean energy target, the state also plans to introduce an energy security target in January 2020 when there will be increased competition in the market;

we have also pre-empted nationwide gas shortages, by investing to accelerate gas exploration here in South Australia to increase supply into our local energy market, while also rejecting calls from those opposite to ban gas exploration in the South-East; and

finally, we have made $150 million available in a renewable technology fund, which will provide millions in both grants and loans to eligible and innovative companies with cutting-edge renewable energy and storage technologies.

In addition to the energy plan, the South Australian government has also:

committed $31 million to help large South Australian businesses manage their electricity costs through the Energy Productivity Program;

committed $500,000 towards ElectraNet's assessment of a new high capacity interconnector between South Australia and the Eastern States;

changed the National Electricity Law to enable better monitoring of electricity wholesale markets, to ensure a competitive environment; and

submitted rule change proposals in July last year to enhance system security and provide flexibility to the Australian Energy Market Operator to manage security as the generation mix changes.

Federal policy uncertainty has crippled investment in the market, leading to supply issues. AEMO's reports since our interventions in the energy market show that our actions have helped secure our energy network and address supply issues caused from a lack of new generation. But there is more to be done. This government supported not only the initiation of the Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market by Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel, but also all of his 50 recommendations.

Again, we call on the federal government to act on the 50th and final recommendation to introduce a clean energy target, which will provide investors the certainty they need to build new generation and drive down power costs for consumers. We are committed to taking charge of our energy future to ensure that we deliver reliable, affordable and clean energy for all South Australians into the future. By contrast, there are some whose only plan is to hand over our energy future to the commonwealth government, a government that demonstrated through its actions one year ago its willingness to abandon South Australia in its hour of need.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Clearly, if a minister uses a ministerial statement for trenchant expressions of opinion as well as information, he should expect a fair degree of interjection to go unpunished.

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