Malcolm Turnbull calls South Australia a ‘socialist paradise’, says home generators are needed to keep lights on
UPDATED: SA’s Treasurer has ripped back at Malcolm Turnbull, after he labelled the state a “socialist paradise” that needs home generators to keep the lights on.
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PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull has labelled South Australia a “socialist paradise” that needs home generators to keep the lights on and called the state’s approach to renewable energy “absurd” and “hypocritical”.
Responding to questions from Labor energy spokesman Mark Butler in Parliament, Mr Turnbull mocked the Opposition’s energy policy.
“Does the honourable member (Mr Butler, Labor MP for Port Adelaide) have a backup generator at home? Does he really do that? I think he probably does,” Mr Turnbull said.
“I think he has got it hidden under a tarp in the garage because he knows that in that socialist paradise, you can’t keep the lights on.
“The minister suggests maybe he has a bicycle. Maybe he has become a political version of a squirrel, running around keeping the lights on in his place there in SA.”
Mr Turnbull said while “we can trade some good humour from time to time” the energy crisis was a “a deadly serious issue” for jobs and families.
“Unaffordable electricity, unreliable electricity means less investment, businesses closing, Australians losing their jobs,” he said.
“We stand for jobs, we stand for reliable and affordable electricity.”
The Federal Opposition and the State Government support the introduction of an emissions intensity scheme which penalises high emitting generators such as coal-fired power stations and gives credits to low emitting generators including gas-fired power stations and renewables.
But Mr Turnbull said the Government would not take “energy policy lessons” from the Labor Party.
Mr Butler said the PM had “doubled down” on his complete rejection of an EIS.
“This is in spite of independent modelling by the Energy Markets Commission concluding an EIS will save consumers up to $15 billion on power bills, as well as ending investment uncertainty and shepherd the transition to clean and reliable electricity,” Mr Butler said.
Nick Xenophon Team MP Rebekah Sharkie said over Christmas thousands of her constituents in the Adelaide Hills electorate of Mayo went several days without power, phones or internet after storms damaged electricity infrastructure.
Mr Turnbull said SA’s growing reliance on Victorian power was to blame, a consequence of a commitment to more wind power — leading to the closure of Port Augusta’s coal-fired power station.
“I make no criticism of wind energy, but it is intermittent and what this has done is increased the dependence of SA on the interconnector with Victoria,” he said.
“You know where that energy from Victoria comes from — burning brown coal, the most emissions intensive form of generating energy in Australia.
“This is the absurdity and the hypocrisy of the SA approach.”
State Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said Mr Turnbull’s remarking were “unbecoming” of a Prime Minister of Australia.
“I can’t imagine former Prime Ministers Howard and Abbott ever mocking the victims of a natural disaster or making light of such a serious national issue,” he said.
“The office of Prime Minister should offer solutions and ideas instead of partisanship and ideology.
“Mr Turnbull has lost all credibility when it comes to national energy policy.”
Mr Koutsantonis said it was the Federal Government, not the State, which subsidises the operation of renewables such as wind farms.
“He has ignored the advice of his own Chief Scientist, the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Commission, who all agree that an EIS would reduce prices and improve grid security,” Mr Koutsantonis said.
“And last week he perpetrated the myth of ‘clean coal’ of behalf of the coal industry, a form of generation that is farcical, expensive and unproven.”