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

The AEMO's advice has been consistent, always, with what is in their report, and that report is exactly as I read it. The fact is, you have much more wind in South Australia than you have in other states. As a result, you need to have more backup power, more storage—but the South Australian Labor government did not bother getting around to that. So they became more and more reliant on the interconnector to Victoria—where they are busily drawing down brown-coal-fired power, I might say. What an extraordinary irony!

The reality is that the Labor Party have lost the plot on energy. They can continue pounding away—we can see them, led by the Leader of the Opposition—to the light on the hill. There they are, the legions of the Labor loyalists. They are going there, on their way to the light on the hill. Through the darkness of the night, the light is there. It is still. There is not a sound. But then you hear, softly at first but then louder and louder, the chug, chug, chug of the backup generator—because that is what you need to power the light on the hill! Or anywhere in South Australia nowadays. The people of South Australia have been sacrificed on the altar of Labor's incompetence and ideology.

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