Page 5681 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 6 December 2011
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three years the market has changed quickly and it is perfectly reasonable for the minister to take on that responsibility, with the advice of his or her department, and those flexibilities in the legislation, having closely examined the detail, are ones that we think are reasonable.
We note that there are a series of points in the legislation for disallowance by the Assembly. That provides this parliament with an opportunity to curtail the minister’s activities if we feel that they are unreasonable, and certainly I know my colleagues and I will be looking very closely at those decision points. We certainly would not want to find ourselves in the situation of having disallowed it, but I think there is an accountability there for the Assembly to hold the minister to account and to ensure that the territory does continue to get the best value for money.
I am optimistic about the price that the bids will elicit through this reverse auction process. As I touched on already, the small-scale industry has demonstrated the advances that can be made in efficiency and in price improvements, and I think the large-scale industry has the ability to deliver similar gains. Certainly the reduction in panel price has changed the economics of the equation substantially already and I think we will continue to see those benefits flow through.
The other thing that particularly attracts the Greens to this model is that the reverse auction should draw out both the most efficient and the most innovative industry players. And I think that is the real beauty of this model. What it says is that the government is not offering a price. The government is saying that it is intending to release a certain amount of entitlement to a feed-in tariff and through that process it invites people to essentially bid for that entitlement. What this will mean is that people will come forward with their various bids. They will put out the price they think will help them win that entitlement, and those who deliver the best deal for the territory will be the ones to win that entitlement.
In my mind, and certainly in discussions I have had with the government, that will not necessarily be the cheapest. We also need to take into account the reliability of the players, their ability to install, and so, as any procurement does, we will be weighing up a set of factors around reputation, capability to deliver, as well as price. And I think that that is an appropriate approach for the territory to take.
The other attraction in this of course is the 20-year fixed price, and I believe that this will offer great value to the territory and its residents as we go forward. Most of us accept—and I think somewhere in Mr Seselja’s world he can control electricity prices—electricity prices will increase over the next 20 years. It is one of the few things we can probably guarantee. We have certainly seen it in other states where the price has gone up substantially. Here in the ACT we have been insulated against that to some extent by the fact that we have not had the necessity to so substantially upgrade our network infrastructure, which is what has driven a lot of the price increase in the other jurisdictions.
The prices will go up, and if the ACT has contracts for 20 years at a fixed price there is no doubt that somewhere down the track there will be a crossover point where the territory will be doing very well under those contracts and the residents of the ACT
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