Question Without Notice No. 351 asked in the Legislative Council on 29 June 2017 by Hon Dr Steve Thomas
Parliament: 40 Session: 1
COAL-FIRED POWER GENERATION — HON DARREN WEST'S COMMENTS
351. Hon Dr STEVE THOMAS to the minister representing the Minister for Energy:
I refer the minister to the comments of Hon Darren West in the Legislative Council yesterday, 28 June, when he said that we have to stop burning coal, and that is the first thing we should do.
(1) Does the minister support the comments of Hon Darren West?
(2) If so, by what date does the government intend to shut down coal-fired generation in Western Australia?
The PRESIDENT: Yesterday I made some comments about questions seeking opinions. We have just had another example of that earlier. Obviously, people did not hear me clearly enough, but I will leave it up to the minister to provide the response.
Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. The following information has been provided by the Minister for Energy.
(1)-(2) It should be noted that the comments of Hon Darren West in the Legislative Council yesterday focused on the confusion that reigns within the commonwealth government on climate change, and I support his right to critique the federal government in his comments. Hon Darren West's comments did not call for the wholesale closure of thermal generation assets in this state. He was not critical of the state Labor government's commitment to ensuring a balanced mix of energy generation sources required in the south west interconnected system, given its isolation from other jurisdictions. It is no secret that a transition is occurring in electricity generation in WA and some coal-fired plants have been retired as they have been displaced by large and small-scale renewable generation entering the SWIS. The government's position remains to work with industry to ensure that this transition is undertaken responsibly to ensure reliability and security of electricity supply. As I stated on 5 May 2017, when announcing the retirement of Muja AB, this does not signal an abrupt end to thermal generation.