Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Monday I held a roundtable discussion with businesses, local government leaders and the Minister for the Environment and Energy. I'm glad my South Australian colleague is still in the chamber because in the meeting we discussed the effects of South Australia's world's-highest power prices on employers and local councils in my electorate of Boothby. These outrageous and unaffordable power price hikes were caused by the terrible policy decisions of state and federal Labor governments alike. For local government, and therefore ratepayers, the price of keeping street lights on will be hundreds of thousands of dollars more each year. Local businesses, like independent supermarkets, pubs, restaurants and crash repairers, are facing increases to their power bills of up to 72 per cent. I don't know how these businesses are going to absorb these costs. Between them they employ thousands of South Australians—in particular, young South Australians who are in their first jobs. Labor have put these jobs at risk and they have put current and future investment at risk. When businesses are facing double the cost of power, they will not be able to afford to employ new staff. They will not be able to afford to renovate their stores or invest in new plant and equipment. They will not be able to afford to build new stores or new sites. The federal government is doing all we can to drive power prices down. This is absolutely critical for South Australia, but we can't say it is the same for federal and state Labor parties, unfortunately. The future of my state depends on us getting these power costs down.