Office of Hydrogen Power

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:53): My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier retain the chief executive of the Office of Hydrogen Power, Mr Sam Crafter, now that he has abandoned his flagship hydrogen power plant and, if so, what will be his main responsibilities? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: The chief executive of hydrogen receives a total remuneration package of close to $600,000 a year. He is around the fifth highest-paid chief executive in the SA Public Service, ahead of the CEs who run the departments of education, child protection, primary industries and defence.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:54): The Leader of the Opposition asked a question similar to this in the last sitting week and I confirmed then that it is absolutely the state government's intention to retain the services of Sam Crafter because he is a highly capable individual who we recruited out of the private sector, where he had established a rather successful enterprise around skills to do with energy transition, and I am very grateful for the work that Mr Crafter has undertaken and continues to undertake for the government.

As the Leader of the Opposition referred to in his remarks, and consistent with what we have said on the public record, given the policy decisions that we have had to make in respect of Whyalla we are curtailing quite substantially and dramatically the Office of Hydrogen Power. I have asked the CEO of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Mr Rick Persse, to undertake an exercise in conjunction with the Department for Energy and Mining and other agencies to assess what that looks like, where the office finally ends up and where we can best deploy Mr Crafter's services in service of the state.

I want to stress to the Leader of the Opposition and others that this does not mean that we are not continuing work in the area of hydrogen. We still believe that hydrogen will play a role in the future, as I know—or certainly the opposition used to have that position, and Mr 'hydrogen, hydrogen, hydrogen' over here certainly hasn't indicated that he has changed his position. So there is a role here and we want to continue to have—

The Hon. V.A. Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Leader will come to order. You asked a question; listen to the answer.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —a position of leadership on this area for the state, but of course it will have a different form than what it has in the past, given the policy that we have announced. So that is being curtailed. We will make decisions around this in the lead-up to this year's state budget, which is obviously well and truly in formulation at the moment, and we will make announcements about that exercise once it is concluded.