GFG Alliance

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (15:08): I am going to continue down the lines and ask the same sort of question of the government and the government can decide on who wishes to answer. My question is to the Premier. As a taxpayer, as a part of the business sector of South Australia we are all watching with bewilderment around what Whyalla is looking like. With your leave, Mr Speaker, and the leave of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: Without trying to find politics and decide—

Members interjecting:

Mr McBRIDE: It's just coming from a neutral position as a taxpayer of this state as to where this money is going and who is looking after the state coffer. We are not taking sides, because we know this side was involved with Sanjeev Gupta and GFG when they were in government and now we have a new government in the same boat on the other side of the chamber.

What I really would say to everyone in this chamber is you are dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' funds, you are dealing with a company that is not paying its bills, you are dealing with a company that's looking after an asset that the government may wish to use—doesn't have to use—for its green steel agenda; and maybe it is an absolutely wonderful idea into the future. So the real question to the government is do you have to belong to GFG, do you have to belong to the old 1960s steelmaking business of Whyalla, and is there another way of getting to where you need to be for all the right reasons you got into parliament, into government, in 2022 to actually sell your agenda? All I can see right now is nearly like another State Bank debacle.

The SPEAKER: That was a lot. There were many, many questions in there and the Premier has about a minute to answer them. There are moments in time called grievance debates where some of those things may want to be articulated, member for MacKillop.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (15:10): The government, to the extent that we control the agenda within this house, is more than willing to show a lot of latitude in terms of the way questions are formulated for Independents. It's an option that's available to other members of the opposition as well. Should you want to take that up, you are more than welcome to do so.

The tenet of the question from the member for MacKillop has merit because I think there is a degree of misinformation, at least amongst the public, about the relationship between this government or even the former government and GFG. There have been essentially no moneys expended or any substantial resources of the taxpayer that have been made available to GFG that have been expended.

The height of the commitments from this government and the federal government has been a $63 million commitment from the federal government and a $50 million commitment from the state government, as we have discussed earlier, and the most recent credible plan was for an investment in an electric arc furnace which then, of course, did not eventuate because GFG wasn't able to pay for the electric arc furnace—or they made a decision not to. So the money was never expended, and that sort of prudent decision-making by this government, and to be fair the former government too, to not invest huge sums of taxpayers' money has in effect ensured the state's position, the taxpayers' position.

So there is no State Bank-type disaster here, because the South Australian taxpayer is not exposed except to the extent that the South Australian taxpayer or the commonwealth taxpayer chooses to play a role in the event that GFG were to go into administration, which may or may not happen. So I don't think we are in a position to make that comparison.

In regard to the policy that is future orientated, the people of Whyalla and South Australia more broadly need to appreciate this undeniable reality: the Middleback Range is home to one of the best high-quality economic magnetite resources that we are aware of anywhere in the world. One of the bankable economic projects that is available to GFG, and has been for some time, is to invest in a range of different pieces of capital and infrastructure at the mine to transfer from mining haematite—which it has done in great volumes with an extraordinary amount of profitability—to magnetite. That option is there. It is bankable and it is economic, and we call on the custodian of that resource, which is currently SIMEC or GFG's mining operation, to get on with it.

That resource below the surface is of extraordinary value, and it needs to get out from under the ground to generate new wealth and opportunities for the people of Whyalla and the state more broadly. We are impatient for that, because magnetite is a critical ingredient to the decarbonisation of steel, which is essential globally. It is also true that that magnetite resource, through the initiative and the vision, frankly, of Playford, enabled that resource to be associated with a fully integrated steelworks, which is adjacent to a port city. It was a vision that had value then and it is a vision that has value now. What it requires is a degree of considered policy effort from government and a private operator that has the capital to invest.

We are ready to go. We have that policy endeavour, we have that vision. What we don't have is a private owner with the capital to invest. Now is the time for GFG to make the decisions and make the investments that are required. That's our call on GFG, that always has been our call on GFG, and we wait with a degree of impatience to make sure that GFG make the decisions that they are obligated to make to realise that opportunity for the rest of the state.