Grievance Debate

Hydrogen Jobs Plan

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (15:08): This Labor government rather than come to the people of South Australia with a platform of policies in 2022, instead what they did is they deceived them with spin, slogans and, quite frankly, lies as well. This morning on talkback radio the Premier revealed that the government's flagship election policy, its hydrogen jobs plan, was being shelved. This was basically Labor's only energy policy, their major cost-of-living policy and their central policy on jobs and the regions as well. Now it has become another broken election promise.

Labor does not have a plan to bring down power prices for South Australians. They have wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer money on a hydrogen pipedream, one that we have seen the private sector and governments interstate walk away from, yet they arrogantly persisted. We have been asking this government to come clean about its hydrogen pipedream for years. We asked the Premier what he knew that Fortescue did not know, what Origin did not know, what Woodside did not know, what the Queensland government did not know. Labor's Hydrogen Jobs Plan was meant to deliver thousands of new jobs for South Australians, but all it delivered, apparently, was around a $600,000 a year job to their Labor mate in Sam Crafter.

Time and time again we see Labor put politics before people. The Office of Hydrogen Power spent over $63 million the last financial year alone. What did the people of South Australia get for this $63 million? They got another broken promise. We pay some of the highest power prices in the world. Every day I am speaking with small business owners who tell me about their skyrocketing power bills and the impact it is having on their bottom line and their ability to run a viable business. This government promised that their hydrogen power plant would lower electricity prices for businesses and industry in South Australia.

What does the Premier say to small businesses that are having to close their doors due to the doubling and even tripling of their power bill sometimes under this government? Just remember that nowhere in this government's Hydrogen Jobs Plan—you can get it out yourself and have a look at it—did it state that GFG were an essential component. In fact, only last year the Premier himself said whatever happens with GFG themselves will not deter the government from realising its ambitions.

The CEO of the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy said herself on ABC radio, and I quote:

The hydrogen power plant was a government initiative, it was not a GFG initiative, but what we are seeing is the government using GFG as a vehicle by which they can walk away or back down from their hydrogen ambition.

The federal Labor government have today had to bail out this state government's hydrogen failure.

I have been on the ground in Whyalla. I drove up after question time yesterday and I was there this morning. I welcome the support and assistance going to creditors—I absolutely welcome that; and I had the opportunity to meet with several of those small business owners and contractors—but the reality is that this government has known for months about the precarious state of the Whyalla Steelworks. Who put them in last time? Who was it and who was the minister last time? We might save that for another day.

Time and time again we have asked for transparency, for honesty in this place but they have refused to tell South Australians the truth. Whether it is their secret Steel Task Force or the extraordinary scenes yesterday where they rammed legislation through the parliament without any debate or scrutiny, legislation which effectively places the government at the top of the pecking order of creditors. Today, Whyalla faces an uncertain future: not more jobs but fewer, no hydrogen power plant and a steelworks in limbo.

Yesterday the Premier appointed KordaMentha as the administrator of the steelworks, yet before the election they had a fair bit to say about KordaMentha—again, that is for another day. They actually promised to show the same corporate liquidators the door—one of the many mistruths that have been told to the people of South Australia.

The Premier also told the people of South Australia in 2022 that he would fix the ramping crisis, but he has gone on to deliver the worst 32 months of ramping in our state's history, so his major election policy promise has been broken again. Do you remember the corflutes—I certainly do—the slogans and the rallies on the steps of this place? This Premier told the people of South Australia that he was going to build a hydrogen power plant that would lower electricity prices for businesses in South Australia, deliver thousands of jobs and be fully operational by 2025. Today he broke another promise to South Australians.

I promise the people of South Australia that I will use every day in this place, and as Leader of the Opposition, to hold the government to account for their broken promises and to shine a light on the truth, even when this government does everything in its power to keep the truth from South Australians.