Hydrogen Jobs Plan

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:20): My question is to the Premier. Does the state government have any outstanding commitments for the shelved Hydrogen Jobs Plan and, if so, what are they? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: The Auditor-General's Report reveals there is $125 million in remaining contractual commitments and an $87.4 million contingent liability for the shelved Hydrogen Jobs Plan.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:21): We are buying generators. Congratulations. Welcome to the party. Do you understand now? Yes? Members opposite announced a policy to procure a generator. That requires purchasing it, investing, signing contracts to buy something—right? When you buy a generator, you sign a contract. We haven't cancelled buying the generators.

The Hon. V.A. Tarzia: What are you going to do with them? Where are you going to get the money from?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: It is remarkable that the Leader of the Opposition refuses to listen and learn. Even Frank Pangallo has a greater understanding of what's going on here than my young friend. Let me lay this out for members opposite: we are purchasing four units of 50-megawatt generation. That equals 200. We are going to then sell those generators to have them enter the system so we can have 200 megawatts of existing generation.

The shadow energy minister said the purchase of those 200 megawatts of generation is embarrassing. What policy did he announce just four weeks ago? To buy 200 megawatts of generation. Which one is it: is it embarrassing, or is it Liberal Party policy, or are they the same thing? Again, I don't think the opposition has quite grasped what their own policy is. I will roll it out for them again. Their first policy was that they would want to keep AGL in the system. We have done that. The second policy was to procure 200 megawatts of generation. We are doing that right now. They are the things that they are criticising us on right now, and then they have the audacity to complain about it. The truth is that we have invested in infrastructure that will benefit South Australians over the long term.

Mr Patterson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Morphett can leave until the end of question time.

The honourable member for Morphett having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The infrastructure we have invested in will benefit South Australians, especially the steelworks and the new owners of the steelworks. They will inherit an energy system that is capable of taking an electric arc furnace and direct iron reduction facility at their site—which would have, if we hadn't spent the money it, been pushed onto consumers across all of South Australia. So what we have done, in effect, is put a social component into that infrastructure cost for a community service obligation for anyone who purchases the steelworks. That is a good investment in the future.

Those generators will be operating in South Australia. That is a condition of any sale. If you want to buy these generators, they must be purchased and be operational here in South Australia. That is a good outcome for the people of South Australia. All of the investment we did in engineering and technology for the electrolysers and the generators can be utilised by the owners of the steelworks and, of course, the ultimate owners of the generators.

Members opposite have made investments in the hydrogen hub at Port Bonython that have not come to fruition—tens of millions of dollars. What we do is we want to make those try to work, so we are investing, with the commonwealth government, to try to get that hydrogen hub off the ground. It is difficult, especially when there's no longer any bipartisan support for a project that they started.

The other aspect of this is the $1.9 billion that the commonwealth and state have got on the table for any potential new purchaser of the steelworks. They need to know that the infrastructure is there to be able to have investor confidence, and that is what we are doing.