'It's a disgrace': SA premier attacks 'anti-South Australian' government at press conference
South Australia’s premier has savaged the federal government "as anti-South Australian" during a fiery press conference ambush against the federal energy minister.
Premier Jay Weatherill appeared at short notice to the press conference with Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg but he was not there to smile and nod.
“It is a disgrace the way in which your government has treated our state,” Mr Weatherill declared.
“It is the most anti-South Australian government we have seen from a Commonwealth government in living memory,” Mr Weatherill declared.
Mr Frydenberg responded by calling the attack "childish" and returned fire by calling the state's own energy policies "disasters".
South Australia’s simmering power problems have crashed onto the federal agenda in the past week, with the Weatherill Government declaring a half-billion dollar plan to build its own gas power station and the nation’s largest battery storage for the states renewables.
The move appears to have appalled the Federal Government, which has accused Mr Weatherill’s government of undermining power prices and security for rest of the country.
On Thursday, Malcolm Turnbull announced his government would feed $2 billion into the Snowy Hydro scheme, which is owned and operated by Snowy Hydro Limited.
“It shows the Federal Government is in a white knuckle panic about energy policy,” Mr Weatherill said.
“It’s a $2b admission that the national energy market is broken and there needs to be public investment to fix it up.”
He said he would not wait “four to seven years for some Snowy Hydro scheme” and that his state was investing now to secure its own energy.
It set the scene for the confrontation between the premier and federal energy minister, who sensationally told Mr Weatherill he should stand down in favour of his Treasurer and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis (who had been expected to appear at Thursday's press conference).
Mr Frydenberg said Mr Weatherill’s attack was “unbecoming and childish”.
The press conference was supposed to be a good news event centering on a government backed AGL project.
Mr Frydenberg said he had been “crash tackled”, and responded with his own attack on South Australia's energy plan.
He insisted the Weatherill government "had made a $550 million admission of failure... to solve a problem that they created themselves with initiatives which won't in fact completely solve the problem for SA".
"I feel that the premier trying to come into this to crash tackle us at this announcement where he hasn't put any money into this important initiative, which the Commonwealth and AGL have, just shows you, unfortunately, how desperate he is,” he said.
Tensions have been running hot in South Australia after a series of major power outages, the first of which blacked out Adelaide and led the prime minister to point the blame towards the state’s sizeable renewable energy assets.
The following morning, photos emerged of power lines toppled by a storm, leading to a drawn out debate between the state Labor and federal Liberal governments on the pros and cons of renewable energy, fossil fuels and private versus public ownership.
