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

The honourable member must enjoy coming to Canberra more than anyone, because at least here he has a reasonably high confidence that the lights will stay on, the air conditioner will work, his computer will keep running. He gets out, leaves home and gets down here where he can rely on a bit of energy continuity. He cannot get that at home. Why not? Because the Labor Party in South Australia has now got to the point of such furious rage that the Premier is unable to contain himself even within the parameters of courtesy within the political context, let alone general behaviour. His performance the other day at the press conference with the Minister for the Environment and Energy was completely over the top. I can understand why he is so angry. What he has done is literally sleepwalk his own state into an energy crisis, to the point where, having said only a few months ago that everything was okay—it was fine; it was a great experiment that was leading the nation and the world; South Australia charges ahead—now he has to spend half a billion dollars to buy a new gas-fired power station and a 100 megawatt battery that will run for one hour. If you are short of 100 megawatts for an hour it would be very useful, but if it is for an hour and 10 minutes, not so much.

The reality is that the honourable member knows that the Labor government of South Australia has created the problem that it faces. The honourable member talks about emissions intensity schemes. The fact of the matter is this: an emissions intensity scheme is designed to shift generation from coal-fired power to gas. All of the assumptions that have been built in over the years assumed abundant gas at an affordable price. Thanks to the decision of Labor governments to lock up our gas resources, we are in a position where gas is not available in the quantities it should be, and it is certainly not affordable. If you could buy a long-term contract for gas at $9 a gigajoule—most people in industry will say you cannot—that equals $100 a megawatt hour. That is peaking power; it is not base load power. That is very expensive power, and of course gas prices are much higher than that.

The minister and I and the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Canavan, are determined to sort out this Labor-created mess over the gas sector. We have met with the producers. We have received commitments to continue to provide peaking power. We have more work to do with them. Labor has created a shocking energy crisis, but as their own chamber of commerce head in South Australia said, South Australia leads the nation in energy mismanagement. It is the canary in the coalmine. The Leader of the Opposition would have all of the nation like South Australia. (Time expired)

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