Hydrogen Industry

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:34): My question is to the Deputy Premier. What impact will the federal government's investment in a domestic hydrogen industry in Victoria have on South Australia? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr PATTERSON: The federal budget allocated $10 million in 2025-26 to establish a national hydrogen technology skills training centre in partnership with the Victorian government to promote hydrogen workforce development to support the skilled workforce needs of the growing domestic hydrogen industry.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:34): I am happy to take this question from the member for Morphett, and I thank him for it because we should all have front of mind the significant additional commitment in last night's federal budget to Australia's sovereign hydrogen industry development. It was not $10 million to Victoria: it was more than $1.3 billion to expand the Hydrogen Headstart opportunity, as well as a significant—

Mr Patterson: It was in the budget papers, quoted direct, so they will be happy with that. They got a big upgrade thanks to you.

The SPEAKER: Member for Morphett, you have had your question; listen to the answer.

Mr Patterson: I don't want him to mislead the house, sir.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: If there is ever a concern the member for Morphett has that I should do so, I look forward to the debate. At any point of proceedings, I look forward to that debate. As I was saying, there was not only a significant expansion of the Hydrogen Headstart—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Chaffey, I remind you those students are still watching.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: There was not only a significant expansion of the Hydrogen Headstart program of well over $1 billion but many more billions of dollars of production credits. This is because the federal government is trying to address exactly the same problem that our Hydrogen Jobs Plan is trying to address, and that is that across the remainder of the nation it has proved very challenging to get private investment in hydrogen production facilities. Other parts of the nation do not have the natural advantages that we have here in South Australia. They do not have the same levels of coincident wind—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Goodness me; he wonders why he won't get a question. Our Hydrogen Jobs Plan is taking advantage of those natural endowments that we have here in South Australia that have been fostered particularly over the last 20 years, and they are the coincident wind and solar power generation that our Hydrogen Jobs Plan will take advantage of. Having access to production credits makes the production of hydrogen even more financially viable for national producers, up to, I think—I have not got the figure in front of me—$2 per kilogram.

That is why the federal government is rapidly expanding the amount of money that it is making available to this. We are looking forward to sitting down with the federal government and pursuing all of the opportunities we have in securing as much of this funding for our state as possible to ensure that, rather than maybe getting a $10 million hydrogen skills academy or whatever the member for Morphett made reference to, we are getting on with the job of deploying hundreds of millions of dollars of capital to turn this into a reality.