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

I thank Senator Hanson-Young for the question and the opportunity to make very clear to the Senate that this government will make no apologies for wanting to see energy reliability and energy affordability as being priorities right across Australia, especially in a state like South Australia—our home state, Senator Hanson-Young—which has amongst the highest economic challenges and highest unemployment in the nation and therefore should be doing everything possible to be making itself the most attractive location in Australia for investment and job creation in the future.

To look at the facts in relation to what the AEMO preliminary report indicated, it said that the severe weather damaged three transmission lines. It went on to indicate that following these transmission faults and a drop in voltage at the wind farms' connection points, 315 megawatts of wind generation disconnected and the Heywood interconnector increased its flows to meet the demand. Then the Heywood interconnector overloaded. I note that that overloading took place after those other events which, yes, included an extreme weather event but also included the reality of the drop in voltage in relation to wind farms.

What we can see though, not just in relation to this one incident but in relation to repeated incidents in South Australia, is that SA does face the highest priced and least reliable energy in the country. This is not a good situation for a state such as South Australia, seeking to attract more investment in the future and increase jobs growth. That is why we welcome the fact that the Chief Scientist, Dr Finkel, will work with all state and territory energy ministers to give a comprehensive assessment of how we can have a far more rational and sensible approach to energy policies in the future than has been the case with the ad hoc approach of state and territory targets today. (Time expired)