Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was a very sombre speech to follow, and I thank the member for Solomon for those words. I can assure you that all in this House feel the same way. Unfortunately I am not speaking about a subject so harmonious today. I am speaking about electricity in South Australia—what a mess. The state government in South Australia, unfortunately, could not run a raffle, much less an electricity grid. In fact, at the moment we feel like we have had a raffle and the South Australian electricity grid was the last prize left on the table. We have the most expensive electricity in Australia and the least reliable. The state government keeps compounding this problem by approving new intermittent—that is, renewal—supplies onto the SA grid. There is nothing wrong with renewables. We should all be in favour of them, and we are. But at this stage they provide 41 per cent of South Australia's electricity and that is what has imploded—the base load generation business case. The more units we bring online, the more it erodes the Torrens Island and Pelican Point power stations and threatens to put them offline. The big game in town at the moment is storage. We must develop storage of our renewable electricity grid, which is why the Turnbull government is investing in developing new pumped hydro projects and looking very seriously at the project in Port Augusta. I am very hopeful that project will proceed.