Grievance Debate

Hydrogen Power Plant

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (15:26): Previously, I have spoken in parliament about how Premier Malinauskas has used the crisis at the Whyalla Steelworks as cover to break one of his flagship election commitments and that is to now delay his hydrogen hoax. The reality is the Premier had already broken four of the main promises associated with his Hydrogen Jobs Plan before the crisis at Whyalla had escalated.

Now South Australians are expected to believe another hoax and that is that the $600 million that has been budgeted for this hydrogen hoax is going to be not only recovered but allocated across to the Whyalla support package. This is just another ruse by this Premier to not take responsibility for the amount of time and money that he has wasted on three years of his hydrogen fantasy at the same time South Australians are paying the highest electricity prices on record. The reality is that what this means is that South Australians will be left holding a massive bill for the three years the Premier has been distracted by hydrogen.

As part of this deception, the energy minister, who has been in charge both times that Whyalla has been sent into administration, expects us to believe that these now redundant turbines of this failed hydrogen plan are going to be sold for the same or a higher price than what the government bought them for. These are very highly specced aeroderivative turbines that are designed to run on 100 per cent hydrogen, so any future purchaser, of course, is going to have to run these commercially and they are going to have to run them on gas—not political spin, not hot air, but on gas.

But the 2024 state budget revealed the trickery in this because only a fraction of the money spent is recoverable. In this budget, it stated that up to June 2024 the government estimated that $126 million had been spent of that $593 million capital works budget for the hydrogen plan. So, of course, in estimates I asked the minister, 'What has this money, this $126 million, been spent on?' He was forced to admit that $25 million had been spent on the turbines, so that leaves $101 million. He admitted it would primarily be spent on engineering design and planning work for the Hydrogen Jobs Plan as we go along. That leaves $101 million that they have spent. But, of course, now that project is shelved, so will we ever see that money come back to the coffers of South Australians?

Under a normal, orderly engineering design process, there would have been conducted a front-end engineering design to get it to a stage where you could then do a business case so it could be assessed—'Is it technically going to work? Is it commercially going to work?'—and then finally there could be that final investment decision to proceed or not. But, no, not with this government, not when there is taxpayer money to fund it. They rushed into their early contractor involvement process to get it underway with BOC Linde, with ATCO Australia and with Epic Energy. They just raced into this and spent more money on their engineering and design skills here—so there we go.

According to the budget, we are looking at $100 million spent to June, so you can only wonder how much has been spent since: how much since July to those eight months in between, to February 2025, when the Premier has had to embarrassingly cancel this project with nothing to show for it. At the same time, we also have the Office of Hydrogen Power and we have asked questions today about what they are going to be spending. Up to June 2024 they have spent $30.7 million. When the CEO is not on a cuttlefish expedition, that money is going more onto this hydrogen fantasy. Of course, that is not part of the capital works—that is in addition to the budget of $593 million.

Combined, according to the state budget, we are looking at $130 million being spent on this failed hydrogen plan that has now been delayed and there is nothing to show for it. Of course, we are on the hook for tens of millions more. This is going to blow a huge hole in that supposed $600 million that is meant to be going off to Whyalla. Shockingly, to keep this hydrogen fantasy alive, the Premier is saying, 'I am just delaying it.' We know it was soaring towards $1 billion in costs, so taxpayers potentially are on the hook again for a second time. They have already forked out a lot of money, and they are on the hook for it again. The Premier must come clean. How much was his hydrogen plan going to cost and how much has he wasted?