Thursday, 26 May 2022

Adjournment

Gas substitution road map

Ms STALEY (Ripon) (17:01): (6386) My adjournment matter tonight is to the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, and the action I seek is that she urgently releases the gas substitution road map, which was due late last year and then was meant to be released a few weeks ago. The reason that I have requested this adjournment tonight is that today I received an email from a long-term private regional manufacturer in Stawell, who said to me that their gas supplier for the last two years has been Weston Energy, which was suspended from retailing gas on Tuesday, 24 May 2022. They had been recently, over the last six months, paying an average gas price of around $12 per gigajoule. Today they received a proposal from AGL, who are listed as the retailer of last resort, with a quoted default rate of $42.50 per gigajoule. As the business owner has said to me, this is a business-threatening and completely unsustainable increase.

When I spoke with a number of industry participants over the day, what became clear is that Weston Energy has been forced into a position of exiting the gas market because their investors have pulled the pin on their financing, and the reason that their financing has been removed is that there has been no certainty in the Victorian gas market. They specifically mentioned the gas substitution road map and the fact that it had not been released. So we are sitting here with a situation where the state government’s policy road map and the lack of its release has led to—I believe—many hundreds of companies being affected by this, but in this particular case I am talking about one in my electorate that is facing a gas price of $42.50 per gigajoule. It will send them broke. The government needs to act urgently. This has only recently happened—on 24 May, and it is only 26 May today, so it has only just been suspended. The government really needs to take urgent action here. That is why I have stood up on the adjournment today, and I thank my good friend and colleague the member for Gembrook for giving up his adjournment so that I could make this adjournment tonight.