The Hon. SANDRA KANCK: I seek leave to make an explanation before asking the Treasurer a question about contractual arrangements relating to the sale of green power in South Australia.

Leave granted.

The Hon. SANDRA KANCK: At the Kyoto conference on climate change the federal government acknowledged that climate change could have significant environmental and socioeconomic impacts upon Australia. Scientists tell us that to date Australia has been woefully inadequate in terms of its response to the challenges posed by global warming. But one area where Australia is progressing is in the development of green power schemes, that is, power produced from sustainable energy sources.

Currently 68 000 Australians are purchasing green power. Household consumers are paying anything between 50¢ and $4 extra per week for green power, but South Australians cannot avail themselves of this because we are the only state in Australia not to offer consumers that option. Did the lease of ETSA Power contain a requirement that the lessee provide South Australian electricity consumers with the option of purchasing green power? If not, why not? If so, when do the contracts require green power retailing options to be made available to electricity consumers? Finally (on a matter about which I wrote to the Treasurer earlier this year), does the state government have any plans to revive its bill for a sustainable energy authority?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer): In relation to the last question, as I have discussed with the honourable member on a couple of occasions, it is a question of the government being able to find the required funding to sustain the Sustainable Energy Authority-

The Hon. Sandra Kanck interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: And we didn't sell them; we leased them.

The Hon. Sandra Kanck: But you have.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Not with any help from the Democrats. It had been hoped that the licence fees from the participants within the industry would be sufficient to help fund not only the Industry Regulator, the Technical Regulator and the Planning Council but also the Sustainable Energy Authority. But, as I have discussed with the honourable member, the level of licence fees that we believed that we could charge for people to operate in our business was not sufficient to pay for all of those particular authorities. So the decision really is now a budget decision, in part, for the government and that is to see whether or not it is able to find the significant additional resources required for the Sustainable Energy Authority.

Certainly, I think the reasons for the authority remain as valid today as they were when we were debating this some two years ago, but it is an issue now of trying to find the funding for it because it cannot be provided through the licensing fee arrangements of the participants within the electricity industry. In relation to the honourable member's first question, I will need to check the leasing arrangements, but I think the requirements for green power actually go above and beyond the leasing arrangements of the electricity assets in South Australia. I think they are requirements of federal legislation in some way, but I do not profess to be an expert in that area. But my recollection is that it is actually a federal government requirement which will apply to operators in all states and territories of Australia. I would need to check that and to report back to the honourable member. The honourable member's second question, which was-

The Hon. Sandra Kanck: If there are contractual arrangements, when do we have to have green power available?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I will take the second question on notice with the first question. The only other point I could make is that I guess the one thing that South Australia can argue with some validity is that we in South Australia, because of our concentration on use of gas fired generation, are much better positioned in terms of the impact on issues in relation to greenhouse emissions than those who rely on coal fired generation. Whilst there has been a lot of criticism from some members in this chamber about the government's policies of encouraging gas fired generation at Pelican Point, as an indication of the government's clean, green, environmentally friendly credentials we resisted that ill-informed criticism of Pelican Point and fought the good fight against the opponents and ensured that our clean and green and environmentally friendly image would not be sullied by relying on more and more coal fired generation, whether it be in South Australia or being dragged across the border from other states.