Abbott, Joyce in intervention over Liddell power station

TONY Abbott and Barnaby Joyce have raised concerns about the Turnbull government’s commitment to keeping open AGL’s Liddell coal power station in a party room intervention, sources said.

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FORMER prime minister Tony Abbott and former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce have raised concerns about the Turnbull government’s commitment to keeping open AGL’s Liddell coal power station in a party room intervention this morning, sources said.

The intervention followed reports in The Australian newspaper today that the long-rumoured party interested in the Hunter Valley coal power station due to be shuttered in 2022 was the Chinese outfit Shandong Ruyi Group, represented by rugby union great turned banker Nick Farr-Jones.

The Liddell power station is due to be closed in 2022. Picture: Jane Dempster

The Daily Telegraph understands Mr Abbott asked Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull if, having been aware of the interest in purchasing the plant, he had put extra pressure on AGL and its chief executive Andy Vesey to put the generator up for sale.

Mr Joyce, who was Mr Turnbull’s deputy until last month, separately expressed concerns that too little had been done to prevent Liddell from shutting, despite the energy regulator raising the possibility there could be rolling blackouts in Sydney if AGL or another company did not provide firm commitments to fill the power gap.

The only other company which had publicly signalled its interest in Liddell — which AGL is refusing to keep open or sell despite paying no money for it when it acquired the state-owned Macquarie Generation in 2014 — was Delta Energy.

Tony Abbott declined to comment on what had been said in the party room. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Mr Turnbull told reporters earlier today the sale of Liddell to Shandong Ruyi, which is the majority owner of the country’s largest cotton farm Cubbie Station, or by other interested parties was “a conversation that they have to have with AGL”.

“The Liddell power station is not owned by the Australian government,” he said.

Mr Abbott is also understood to have told the party room that if the government was prepared to intervene and spend billions of dollars on the Snowy Hydro 2.0 project, there was no excuse for not intervening to ensure the coal power station continued to operate.

The government has, however, completed a preliminary review of an urgent audit of some coal plants to determine whether there were low-cost opportunities to make them more efficient and more reliable.

Barnaby Joyce expressed concerns that too little had been done to prevent Liddell from shutting. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Mr Abbott declined to comment on what had been said in the party room meeting, but told the Daily Telegraph “it is absolutely vital that we do not put at risk the security of supply on the east coast and that means keeping Liddell open or urgently producing an affordable and reliable alternative source of baseload power”.

“Plainly the obvious thing to do is not make the mistake that we made last year in Victoria and not let this vital piece of economic infrastructure close,” Mr Abbott said.

The Australian Energy Regulator is expected to hand down a report about the closure of Victoria’s Hazelwood power station last year later this week.

The closure of that plant has been held responsible for skyrocketing wholesale electricity prices in Victoria and in NSW.