Hydrogen Power Plant

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:57): My question is to the Premier. When will the government deliver the government's hydrogen power plant?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:57): Thank you for the question. The government's hydrogen power plant is there to feed a private sector direct iron reduction facility. Right? Are you finally getting it? We're not miners. We're not doing the mining of the iron ore. We're not making green iron. Someone else is. We are providing an input.

An honourable member: Why did you start it without an assurance that it was happening?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: My goodness, sir. On Tuesday, they wanted us to hand over $50 million to Sanjeev Gupta. Now they are saying, 'How did you trust him?' Just remember this: the commonwealth government offered $63 million to GFG for an electric arc furnace. We had $50 million on. The cost of the electric arc furnace and associated equipment at the time those grants were made was a total of $315 million, not $3 billion. Check your zeros, mate. Mr Gupta then told us that he had signed a contract with Danieli. I then flew to meet with Danieli in Italy.

An honourable member: How was it?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: It was lovely. I met with the owners and operators of Danieli, and I said, 'Alright, show me the plans, given we are a co-funder of this with our $50 million.' The way that the previous government and the previous Weatherill government had instituted this fund was that it would be paid in arrears as work had been completed and then verified, not in advance, as members called on us to do on Tuesday. So we went through it. They signed an MOU, spent a few thousand dollars and that was it. While I was on the way there, I heard from Mr Gupta through a press release that it would be delayed until 2027.

What we had to do was of course maintain steel operations. Since then, steel operations in Whyalla have gotten progressively worse, while Mr Gupta's empire grew in Europe, buying other distressed assets. Meanwhile, the people of Whyalla who were working at the steelworks were being told to catch buses to other parts of the building to use the toilet and to bring their own toilet paper because maintenance wasn't being done.

You will forgive us, Mr Speaker, if we think it is imperative that we invest in the transformation of the steelworks and put on hold our ambitions for a hydrogen future—not abandoning them at all. We believe in hydrogen, almost as much as Mr 'Hydrogen, Hydrogen, Hydrogen' over here.

We believe that hydrogen will decarbonise steelmaking in Australia. If you are going to build a hydrogen plant, you are going to build it here in South Australia because we have the renewable resources for it. It is the same mockery about the big battery—it is no different; it is exactly the same. It is the same people, the same ideology. Anything that's not coal is wrong. Anything that isn't nuclear is wrong. They are the experts. When they want to invest in hydrogen, it's okay. If someone else wants to invest in hydrogen, it's a folly. They are just hypocrites.