Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

We know that Adelaide Brighton, the company in his own electorate that employs hundreds of people, had to book a $13 million penalty or price because of that blackout. That is the price of Labor's reckless policies.

It takes some kind of genius, that the member for Port Adelaide must be, to describe the energy policy in South Australia as 'a hiccup'. He described it as 'a hiccup'. This is a policy that has led to more than half a billion dollars in expenses in South Australia when they had a statewide blackout. This is a policy that led Premier Jay Weatherill to spend $110 million on diesel generators that use 80,000 litres an hour and, during the peak summer months when they are supposed to be used, don't work when the temperature is hot. That is the Labor policy. It takes some kind of genius in South Australia to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a new gas-fired power station.

The Prime Minister might be interested to know that when the Northern Power Station was open in South Australia, South Australia only got 12 per cent of its brown coal-fired power energy from Victoria through the Heywood interconnector in 2014-15. But in 2016-17, after the closure of the Northern Power Station, how much brown coal did you get from Victoria in South Australia? Twenty per cent! The Labor Party's policy is to follow Jay Weatherill in South Australia, who gave them: diesel generators that don't work when the sun is out, diesel generators that use 80,000 litres an hour, gas-fired power stations that have to be built by the government and more coal-fired power from Victoria than when the Northern Power Station was in operation. That is what the green policies of the Labor Party look like.

The member for Port Adelaide should know better, because a company in his own electorate, where hundreds of workers are employed, had a blackout, which has cost that company its own money. The member for Port Adelaide should look in his own backyard before asking questions in this place about the price of power.

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