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

Senator Hanson-Young has clearly failed to notice the work that the Chief Scientist, Dr Finkel, has undertaken which is absolutely looking at the market rules and will ensure we have a coherent response to the market rules. But I tell you what won't fix the market rules. What won't fix the market rules is Premier Jay Weatherill deciding he is going to empower his energy minister to try to direct the national electricity market all on his own. What will happen there is that ultimately you will see other states—Victoria and New South Wales—decide to give their energy ministers the same power; and, far from having an effective electricity market, all you will have then is chaos with different energy ministers putting in place different orders at different times that conflict with one another and lead to a chaotic environment. Nothing will fix the national electricity market by giving individual states capacity to dictate in competing ways; what will fix it is the coherent, thoughtful approach the Turnbull government is applying which will ensure we have rules of the market that work effectively in the interests of all states in the future. (Time expired)