Whyalla

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (14:34): My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer inform the house on his visit to Whyalla last week and the meetings he had with community stakeholders?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy) (14:34): I want to place on record my thanks and admiration for the member for Giles. This is someone like a lot of the members from regional communities: they bleed for their electorates. Whether it is the member for Giles or the member for Mount Gambier or the member for Frome, these are people who care deeply about their local communities, and I am impressed by it.

The state government, in conjunction with the Steel Taskforce, the commonwealth government and stakeholders, has been working tirelessly in support of the Whyalla community through this period of difficulty. Last Wednesday I visited Whyalla and spent the day there with the member for Giles, Mr Eddie Hughes. The member for Giles and I met with workers from the mine and the steelworks to hear first-hand about the impact that uncertainty around the future of Arrium is having on employees and their families.

I told them that the state government was committed to doing everything in its power to ensure the continued operations of the mine and the steelworks in Whyalla. I also spent about an hour at the steelworks meeting with local management to discuss the ongoing discussions we have in place about the possibilities about where capital investment in the plant will contribute to making the company—indeed, the operations at Whyalla—more viable in the long term. I met with the Acting Mayor of Whyalla to discuss the situation and the impact it was having on the local council.

Whyalla, as it is often said, is a resilient community that has endured hardship in the past, and that resilience is evident today, with new opportunities emerging in the region. I had the opportunity, while in Whyalla, to tour facilities at Muradel of which the local member of parliament is a very strong champion. It is an innovative pre-commercial company spawned from research conducted by the University of Adelaide.

Muradel, quite incredibly, uses sustainable, renewable biomass to create a range of fuel products, oils and chemicals. That biomass includes algae, sewage and used tyres which Muradel converts to fuel by processing it in their custom-built reactor. The state government is committed to growing and diversifying the state's economy and it is committed to promoting innovation, particularly in the area of renewables.

I am pleased to inform the house that the state government's Strategic Industry Development Fund has approved a $500,000 grant for Muradel to invest in a tyre shredder that will allow it to begin to scale up and prove up its commercial operations. Once established, a large scale commercial plant would require about 22,000 tonnes of used rubber to produce 100,000 barrels of biocrude each year and will create up to 120 jobs in the area.

I also had the privilege to meet with the good people at Foodbank Whyalla who do essential work in the Upper Spencer Gulf region and Eyre Peninsula providing food to those who need it the most. Foodbank has, for the past six years, operated out of the state government-owned drill core library facility in Whyalla. With the state's drill core samples being progressively moved to the new, state-of-the-art, world's best practice South Australia Drill Core Reference Library at Tonsley, the government had the option to sell or lease the property.

In recognition of the important work that Foodbank does in the Whyalla region, and in no small part of the demands of the local member of parliament, the state government has decided to gift the drill core library facility to Foodbank to secure the long-term delivery of charitable food relief and services.

The state government stands with the people of Whyalla and the Upper Spencer Gulf, and we are calling on all interest groups, including the Arrium creditors, to act in the national interests and support the future of this critically important Australian industry. I will be visiting Whyalla frequently in the coming months to meet with the community and reassure them that this government is doing everything it can to ensure a prosperous future for the region.