South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy

Mr MURRAY (Davenport) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Energy and Mining. Will the minister update the house on the recent—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader is warned.

The Hon. S.S. Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Premier is warned.

Mr MURRAY: —SACOME Together Annual Gala and awards night?

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:56): Thank you, again, to the member for Davenport, who has a very keen interest in this area on behalf of his constituents. Yes, it's a pleasure to update the house with regard to the SACOME annual gala event that was held last night. I would like to congratulate SACOME's president, Mr Greg Hall, and SACOME's CEO, Ms Rebecca Knoll, for yet again organising an event.

They had approximately 350 people at this event, which is extraordinary. This is nearly twice as many as they had last year, which, I am very pleased to say, not only speaks well of SACOME but also speaks very well of people's views of their resources industry at the moment—the mining, minerals and petroleum industry. That industry really is buoyed for many reasons at the moment.

One of the highlights of the evening was the very, very strong line-up of people who came to speak. We had Mr Tom O'Leary from Iluka Resources, Mr Matt Kay from Beach Energy, Mr Sanjeev Gupta from GFG Alliance, Ms Jacqui McGill from BHP and Mr Shan from CU-River, who, interestingly, because of understandable difficulty with language, had one of his key staff present on his behalf. But Mr Shan was certainly there.

There was a marvellous line-up of speakers, but let me just focus on Ms Jacqui McGill for a moment, who, as all members of this house would know, has led BHP at Olympic Dam in South Australia for about 3½ years now. She has done an extraordinary job, and this event last night, as well as being terrific in many ways on behalf of the industry, also gave an opportunity for people to recognise Ms Jacqui McGill, who, one or two days earlier, had actually announced her retirement.

It was lovely to have so many prominent people from the industry gathered there last night to recognise what a wonderful job Jacqui McGill has done on behalf of BHP, on behalf of all the workers in this state who are either directly or indirectly employed by BHP and, in fact, on behalf of our state as a whole. BHP is one of our most important companies in South Australia, both in regard to the products that it produces but also in regard to the people it employs and its broader contribution to our industry.

Everybody there was enjoying themselves. Mr Tom O'Leary spoke about Iluka Resources. We are very fortunate to have a Perth-based company that makes such a significant contribution here in South Australia. In fact, in a meeting with Mr O'Leary and two of his key staff earlier that day, and on the night, he was very complimentary of South Australia and he looks forward to it becoming an even better place to do business in years to come.

Mr Matt Kay from Beach Energy spoke about the petroleum industry, of course. Beach Energy is one of our most important companies here in South Australia. He spoke about Beach's acquisition of Lattice, or of petroleum assets which Origin previously held and which were recently sold to Beach. Very interestingly, he described it as a $1.4 billion company acquiring a $1.6 billion company. In everybody's language, that's a pretty special achievement. I do congratulate them.

Another thing that Mr Kay mentioned was his understanding that he and his industry, in partnership with communities, in partnership with government, in partnership with other stakeholders, needs to do more to work with local communities where they want to get their projects up. Certainly, all people on this side of the house understand that and will support Beach and will support the petroleum industry to do that.

Mr Sanjeev Gupta, of course, requires no introduction. He talked about the extraordinary plans that he and his GFG Alliance have for the businesses in South Australia they already have and for the businesses they would like to acquire—in fact, a growing presence in South Australia—and how important it is to get the mix right between fossil fuel and renewable energy for his business and others. The speech on behalf of Mr Shan by Mr Liu was very enlightening as well. It was a tremendous evening and I congratulate SACOME on putting it on so successfully.