Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, in response to a question about the seven power stations that have closed under this government, the Prime Minister boasted about an extra 2,900 megawatts of gas power generation coming online over the last decade. Can the Prime Minister confirm that every single megawatt of this gas generation came online under the previous Labor government? Does the Prime Minister take any responsibility at all for the investment strike in dispatchable energy that has occurred since this government came to power?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If my recollection is correct, I was quoting from a letter from Australian Energy Market Operator. I'll ask the minister to elaborate on that.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can confirm to the House that it was through the actions of this Prime Minister that we now see Pelican Point in South Australia, a gas-fired power station, about to come on. As a result of the actions of the coalition, as a result of the Prime Minister sitting down with the gas suppliers, ENGIE, the owner of Pelican Point, a 240-megawatt power station, was able to get a contract with Origin. What about Swanbank E in Queensland—another gas-fired power station that the Prime Minister is helping to ensure sufficient gas for? What about the Tamar Valley in Tasmania and the gas-fired power station there? We are seeing, on this side of the House, actions to ensure sufficient gas is available into the market.

When the member for Port Adelaide gets up, we just have to remind the House that he thinks a genius of an energy policy is that of his own state of South Australia, where we have had a statewide blackout, with more than half a billion dollars lost. In his own electorate of Port Adelaide, Adelaide Brighton has had to book a loss of $13 million, 450 jobs. As a result they had 36 hours where they lost power. That's in his own electorate. Now the South Australian government thinks that a genius of an energy policy—a green, clean energy policy—is to spend $110 million on diesel generators that use 80,000 litres an hour and that don't work in the heat. That's the genius of the policy—taking more coal-fired power from Victoria and the Latrobe Valley, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a gas-fired power station built by the taxpayers of South Australia. That is what the South Australian Labor Party delivered in their nearly 16 years in office. If given half a chance, this Leader of the Opposition, aided by the member for Port Adelaide, will deliver blackouts and higher prices across the country.