House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-17 Daily Xml

Contents

Electricity Prices

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (15:04): My question is to the Minister for Energy and Mining. Does the minister agree with the comments made by Danny Price of Frontier Economics in The Australian on 20 April 2022 in relation to the federal Labor opposition's Powering Australia plan? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr PATTERSON: On 20 April 2022 Danny Price said:

It is either an arithmetic error or alternatively they are assuming all the other costs are plummeting, including network costs, and that is impossible. It's just a mistake. It's just plain wrong.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (15:04): I'm glad the opposition is now accepting the wisdom of Danny Price, someone they railed against when they were in government. When we put up our energy plan, which was costed and formulated by Danny Price at Frontier Economics, members opposite said it was flawed. It was questioned. They gave quotes to our daily newspaper saying that costs would blow out, that storage costs would blow out. Well, you can't have it both ways: either Danny Price is a trusted expert or he's not.

I haven't seen the comments made by Mr Price and I don't have the benefit of a country members' travel allowance to offset the costs of my power utilities. I have to pay for them out of my wages, so I am not able to claim a country members' travel allowance to offset these costs.