Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Gichuhi for her question and for her commitment to ensuring the affordability and reliability of energy for Australian households and businesses right across the country, but particularly in our home state of South Australia.

I know that the senator is, as indeed are all government senators, well aware of the risks of ad hoc policy in terms of energy—the risks of states that have chosen to go it alone in an ad hoc way and the risks, indeed, in states where they've chosen to pick ideological winners or favourites in terms of energy generation over the key issues of reliability and affordability.

This, of course, has been most evident in the senator's home state—my home state as well—where we've seen the highest prices and the lowest levels of reliability. Those, of course, were the consequences of what Jay Weatherill, now the former Premier of South Australia, called his 'big experiment'—Mr Weatherill's big experiment that gave South Australia the highest prices and the least reliable energy.

At the election held on the weekend, on Saturday, South Australians were offered the chance to double down on Mr Weatherill's policies. They were offered more selective picking of winners, more ad hoc targets and a 75 per cent renewable energy target. That is the choice voters were given and they said, emphatically, 'No way, Jay!' No way to continued high prices; no way to continued unreliability; no way to continued ad hoc approaches to energy markets; and no way to more stunts where you find a famous billionaire to cosy up to for picture opportunities. They instead chose a commitment to make sure that we have sensible energy policy—policy built on the basis of driving down costs, improving reliability and making electricity more affordable and reliable for households and businesses.