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

My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry. Would the minister explain the benefits to the nation of the national naval shipbuilding project and any threats that put that project at risk? How will the federal government ensure power supply is guaranteed to the Osborne facility?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Boothby for her question. She, like me and the rest of the government, knows that it is critical that ideology never trump the practical when it comes to energy supply in Australia. And that is why this government is ensuring that we have affordable and stable energy and a responsible approach to lowering our emissions, rather than the ideological approach that has been adopted by the Labor Party, particularly in South Australia.

South Australia is facing the energy crisis it is now because of the ideological approach of the South Australian Labor government, which has led us to the highest prices for energy in Australia and the least reliable supply of energy to our businesses. There was no reason for Northern Power Station at Port Augusta to close. Northern Power Station was operating perfectly profitably, supplying base load power to the South Australian energy grid and supporting our economy. It was South Australian Labor's policies that forced it to close, and they were glad when it did. Do not just take my word for it. The CEO of Alinta Energy, the owner of Northern Power himself, said, 'Despite talks with the SA government to stay open, its policies to promote high levels of renewable energy generation have forced the power station's closure.'

Labor's ideological approach to energy supply has snatched the livelihoods of 253 Australians who worked at Leigh Creek at the brown coal power supply there and 225 at Northern Power. So almost 500 people lost their jobs because of the ideological approach to power by the Labor Party in South Australia—replicated here in Canberra. What that means for Leigh Creek is the town has no economy. That means people have left the town in droves. In contrast, this government is taking a pragmatic, all-of-the-above approach to energy supply in Australia. We know that we need to look at all technologies that are working and that might work in the future. We need to be technology neutral.

This comes home very much to the naval shipbuilding project, which the member for Boothby raised. We are faced with the prospect of using $20 million of Australian taxpayers' money to secure the energy supply at Osborne for our shipbuilding and our submarine yard development. We are putting $1.3 billion into infrastructure in South Australia alone—on submarine yards, the shipyard, securing the precinct and buying the common user facility from the state government—but we have to put $20 million of taxpayers' money to generate power because of the failure of the South Australian Labor government, which this party here in Canberra wants to replicate.