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QUESTION: Thanks for joining us guys. Obviously South Australia was the star of the show every day in Question Time last week and not for good reasons but because of the argument over the state of affairs with our state’s power supply. First question to you, Chris Pyne. Did Malcolm Turnbull- by prosecuting the case so aggressively- was there a risk, and I ask you more as an South Australian than an MP, that a lot of people watching Question Time and watching the news coverage would have thought, ‘Jeez, South Australia is a basket case.’

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well sadly under the Labor government of Jay Weatherill, South Australia’s economy is a basket case. The city of Adelaide Committee came to Canberra yesterday, real, serious, large Adelaide businesses, and asked the Federal Government what we could do to help South Australia because they can’t invest in our state because they can’t guarantee the power. Now, what Malcolm Turnbull has been prosecuting is that SA is the canary in the coalmine, to use the words of the city of Adelaide committee, because if Labour gets their way nationally with their ridiculous 50% renewable energy target, what's happened in South Australia is what will happen across the rest of the country and we’re turning our economy from being an ultra competitive economy in the international market into one that is unreliable, has very high electricity prices and businesses simply wont come here because money is so mobile these days.

QUESTION: To you Albo, have we gone too far, too fast down the renewables route? We saw last week that obviously there was not enough wind power and Pelican Point, the gas fired station, was not online. It would have taken four hours for it to kick in. We’ve seen the Western Australia Labor division walking away from campaigning in favour of a renewables target. Has Labor been too keen to impress the sort of green voters in the inner cities at the expense of basic service delivery?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well it's extraordinary that Christopher Pyne is prepared to talk down South Australia but I’m going to talk South Australia up. I think Adelaide is a great city, I think South Australia is a great state and I think it's a great economy. And the fact is, that the playing of politics with this issue is outrageous. In NSW, the state where I’m from, which relies on coal more than any other state…last week we saw on Friday, just down the road from me in Burwood in the middle suburbs, power cut off. We saw that happen on the Central Coast. We saw Tomago shut down effectively for periods of time on Friday and Saturday. Now that’s the equivalent of 12% of the state’s electricity turned off because of shortages in terms of supply. And it wasn’t Labor who privatised electricity in South Australia, who sold the lot off and removed the capacity therefore for the government to intervene and it’s not Labor that controls the national energy process that report through to Josh Frydenberg. They made the decision to not turn on Pelican Point.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Rubbish.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: They say that themselves, Christopher. The South Australian rhetoric does not match Christopher Pyne’s statements.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: How long are we going to let him talk for?

QUESTION: Don’t worry we’re going to give you a chance now, Chris.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: He could talk under dry cement with a mouth full of marbles.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Give him a break. Poor old Christopher. No, no- let me go on, listeners are turning off!

QUESTION: No no no, you’re done now. I’ll turn you both off. That’s good. I always win this game. Premier Jay Weatherill has been demanding an emissions trading scheme. Christopher Pyne, are you guys going to maintain this curious position in Australia whereby it's the left of politics demanding a market-based solution to these things. Are you ever going to back an ETS again?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Never, because Jay Weatherill’s solution to electricity prices to being forty percent higher in South Australia and being the most unreliable in the country, causing our economy to be below Tasmania’s as the worst performing economy in he country, is to put another tax on.

QUESTION: Never ever, you’ll never back an ETS?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, absolutely not. Because the solution is not more taxes which Jay Weatherill always reaches to. The solution is to increase our power supply, which means we need clean coal power stations. Northern Power should never have been allowed close down. There are 700 clean coal power stations in Asia.

QUESTION: Doesn’t that put the imperative on the federal government to take a more active role? If you’re going to deny a market based solution.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We are taking a very active role. Putting a tax on is not a market-based solution, please. A market-based solution is increasing supply when demand is increasing. And the reality is we export more coal than any other country in the world. In Asia there are 700 clean coal power stations. There are 90 in Japan alone with 45 more being planned in Japan alone. Yet we don't have one in Australia because of the ideological bent of the left…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That's just nonsense.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …in South Australia…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That’s just nonsense. If the market was wanting to build one, it could build one. The people in the energy sector themselves as well as those people who finance energy are saying that gas is cheaper, renewables are cheaper and that you’d have to increase power prices by four times if you wanted to go through coal fired power.

QUESTION: [Interrupts] But Albo, surely part of the reason why no one will invest in coal is that Labour, in cahoots - particularly under Julia Gillard’s Prime Ministership- with the Greens, have been telling everyone that will listen that coal is the work of the devil.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That’s not true. That’s complete nonsense, David. And you’re better than the other bloke who’s trying to interrupt me. The fact is that if people wanted to build a coal fired power station they could have. But the truth is, they’re all coming to the end of their life. And this is an energy crisis…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Why aren’t they building more like in Japan and Asia?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: …That the federal government needs to get on top of the national energy market.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …That’s not right!

ANTHONY ALBANESE: …Who’s going to build it?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Oh stop talking and let somebody else have a go….

QUESTION: [Interrupts] Guys, guys guys…we’re going to change subjects now. Just quickly I want to get a take from both of you on the debate over gold pass travel for former MP’s. Do you support the fact that Malcolm Turnbull is moving to abolish it and what do you think of Cory Bernardi’s call that it be cut off for former Prime Ministers that have served less than four years?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It think that it’s ridiculous that it should be cut off for former PM’s. And obviously I support the government’s policy of removing the life gold pass. I can’t think of anything less that I’d rather do when I retire from parliament than get on a plane and travel around Australia constantly. But you didn't let me respond to what he said before which was full of furphies. When they were in parliament, they changed…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: [Interrupts] Oh Come on! Come on, Christopher! Good try.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …The Energy Finance Corporation is not allowed to invest in clean energy.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: It’s not clean. It’s not clean…

QUESTION: Albo, gold passes.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well they’re gone. We got rid of them for all new entrants. Tony Abbott actually got rid of them, some three years ago this announcement. I wonder what the fuss is about, they've been done.

QUESTION: But the retrospectivity part of it though.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Yeah Tony Abbott did that. Ummm some ah…I think in 2015.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It didn't pass. It didn't pass the Senate.

QUESTION: It didn't get through.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: and it was challenged.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It didn't pass. It didn't get through the Senate!

ANTHONY ALBANESE: … Everyone was notified and those people who have used it since are getting a bill. It’s a good thing it’s gone. But for goodness sake, former Prime Ministers should be entitled to actually continue representative duties. There’s no…

QUESTION: There’s so many former PM’s now and both of you can take some credit for that. … We’re going to have to wrap it up there. Albo and Pyne, always the most willing segment on Australian radio.