2016-05-26
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — My question is for Mr Jennings, representing the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. According to its testimony to the French Senate, the French owner of the Hazelwood power station has told us as follows:
For the Hazelwood plant, we are studying all possible scenarios, including closure, or a sale if the state of Victoria tells us that it cannot meet power-generating needs without this plant.
I ask the minister: what meetings have the responsible ministers had with this company, what has the company told them and what have they told the company?
[Speech was interrupted.]
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — There are people all over Victoria who are looking for urgent action on climate change from the government. There are also people in the Latrobe Valley who want to make decisions about their future based on the plans of this company. Is the minister really telling the chamber that his government is indifferent to whether the company just goes along and closes the plant in its own way and in its own time or alternately that it flogs it off, as we have seen happen elsewhere, to another company, perhaps a company with much less deep pockets than Engie? By taking this question on notice, is the minister telling us that the government really does not have a view either way what this company should do and is effectively just going to wait and see?
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