A dinner of first ministers ahead of Anthony Albanese's first national cabinet meeting could be lit by candlelight amid warnings that Australia's energy grid will be under further strain on Thursday night.
The Prime Minister will face demands from state and territory leaders for a $5 billion funding increase for health via an extension of a current 50/50 pandemic cost partnership at a national cabinet meeting on Friday.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr is pushing for the agreement to be extended until the end of the new financial year to help hospitals catch up on elective surgery and move into a new phase. Beyond that agreement, he wants the federal government to lift their contribution to health year on year.
"It will cost the commonwealth money but I think there are efficiencies that can be gathered in a sensible reform conversation," Mr Barr told ABC RN on Thursday.
"The demographics of Australia dictate that health spending is going to have to increase, but we can do it more efficiently. We should be able to strike that agreement as part of the next commonwealth state and territory health upgrade."
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese didn't reveal if he would extend the funding partnership saying he looked forward to "constructive" discussions with premiers and chief ministers.
"We do inherit not just a decade of denial and delay when it comes to climate change, we inherit a trillion dollars of debt with not much to show for it from the former government. That is the context in which we will consider discussions going forward," he said.
"We are not in a position to do everything we would like to do immediately."
The Prime Minister has also flagged his intention to involve local government in national cabinet and will discuss micro-economic reform to boost productivity and grow the economy.
"As we emerge from the pandemic, we need to look at how we grow the economy stronger. I want productivity to be front and centre of that agenda. And I will be discussing that, as well as, no doubt, we will have a discussion about energy [on Thursday night] as well," he said.
The meeting will be held as the country faces an energy crisis with the Australian Energy Market Operator taking the extraordinary step of shutting down the wholesale electricity market on Wednesday.
The ACT Chief Minister has said the territory is better able to withstand the crisis due to long-term investment in renewable power.
However, Canberrans were asked by the environment directorate to reduce their electricity consumption on Wednesday night, and major users - such as universities - have been warned they may have to turn off power.
Andrew Barr said while the ACT was "not totally" protected from load shedding, it relied more on solar and wind energy than some other states or territories.
"You can see across the jurisdictions - how can I put it diplomatically ... those who moved early to secure their energy supplies [towards] the inevitable future, which was renewable energy, are in a better position now than those who didn't," he said.
"The fact that the market had to be suspended indicates that there will need to be some further work and analysis of how to avoid this sort of specific situation.
"The test of any system is how it copes with an extreme circumstance."
Mr Barr said the ACT would be able to withstand "ebbs and flows" of energy demand in the future.
"We now produce a significant proportion of our own energy through solar and wind generators, inside the territories, borders and in our immediate region as well as having a diverse portfolio of renewable energy generation," he said.
"We'll be able to store a lot more energy here which will smooth out some of the ebbs and flows [and] in short to ensure much greater dispatchable power to meet any of the potential hopefully not too many in the future, but the potential scenarios like that we're living through now."
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