Gupta, Mr S.

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:51): My question is to the Premier. When did the Premier first determine that Sanjeev Gupta was not going to invest $3 billion in an electric arc furnace to build green steel at Whyalla?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:51): I thank the shadow minister for his question. Obviously we have been monitoring the movements and the intention of Mr Gupta for some time, and it is fair to say that there were question marks being raised even around the time of the big reveal back at the end of 2018. I have been asked this question, and it is a pretty reasonable one, about at what point did we start to make the determinations we did and at what point did we resolve to take the action that we did yesterday.

I guess the critical thing that occurred most recently is that it is one thing for GFG to not invest and realise their ambitions that they had talked to that we all would have liked to have seen transpire, including members opposite, but another thing to not be paying people on the ground. That is what started a change, and pretty quickly. We have had periods of time, over years now, where GFG would be behind in payments and then catch up. That evolved and tested everyone's patience, but more recently it is just that rapid decline of finances where debts weren't being paid at all and months were dragging on.

I referred to this yesterday, I think, in the chamber: when you look out the window as you are flying into Whyalla at the moment there are all these ships sitting there, often with work being prepaid for, but product can't get on or off them—in this case on them—to go out to export markets, despite purchases being prepaid for. It's a completely unsatisfactory situation. It was so dire that it did invite this unprecedented response, and it was those events that really precipitated the government deciding to take the actions we did yesterday.

The SPEAKER: Member for Morphett.

Mr Cowdrey: Why did you build your electricity plant if you were never sure?

The SPEAKER: If the member for Colton has a question, stand up and take the spot of the member for Morphett. If not, we will leave it to the member for Morphett to ask the question.