House debates

Wednesday, 29 March 2017

Questions without Notice

Energy

2:28 pm

Photo of Rowan RamseyRowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry, representing the Minister for Employment. Will the minister outline to the House why unreliable and expensive electricity is a success to job-creating industries in South Australia, like the southern bluefin tuna industry, which employs over 600 people in my electorate of Grey? How is the government acting to ensure that businesses are not jeopardised by unreliable and expensive power? Is the minister aware of any other approaches?

2:29 pm

Photo of Christopher PyneChristopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | | Hansard source

I thank the member for Grey for his question. Nothing proves Labor's one-eyed obsession with closing down coal-fired power stations and taking away baseload power more than the South Australian government's decision to close down the northern power station at Port Augusta. Today, this letter has emerged from Alinta, written by Alinta, to the South Australian government, demonstrating that Alinta would have kept open the Northern Power Station for $25 million—$25 million which the South Australian government has wasted on many other projects over the years. For $25 million the South Australian government could have kept baseload power in South Australia. We could have avoided the year of blackouts that we have had—the businesses that have seen their produce destroyed, the insurance claims that need to be made after every blackout, the damage to our economy in South Australia, the highest electricity prices and the most unreliable energy in the country.

The South Australian government jumped up and down about Arrium when Arrium was in danger, and we acted to fix it. They jumped up and down about Nyrstar a few years ago at Port Pirie. The Northern Power Station needed $25 million to supply baseload power to South Australia and Labor said: 'No, we'd rather close down your power station. We'd rather rely on unreliable power in renewable energy,' which was found, yet again, by another AEMO report yesterday to have been the reason for the blackouts that have been occurring in South Australia. The damage has been done by making our power supply so unreliable. The Premier of South Australia chose, instead of using $25 million to protect families, households and businesses, to conduct an experiment—an experiment he described himself as an experiment—and the damage has been real and lasting.

With southern bluefin tuna, for example, which South Australia is the centre of with $118 million of exports a year, Australian tuna fishers had planned to expand their operations in Port Lincoln. Hagen Stehr had planned to build a new export factory facility for southern bluefin tuna for specialised frozen tuna in Japan and China. He says—not us: 'I will not build facilities because of the unreliable generation of power and the price of electricity, making it impossible to achieve financial return,' costing South Australia valuable export dollars and jobs for the future.

That is the future under the Leader of the Opposition's policies for renewable energy targets. What has happened in South Australia he wants to take national. He must be stopped, and this government will stop him.