Hydrogen Power Plant

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:12): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier accept the Auditor-General's statement on the shelved hydrogen project? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: The Auditor-General's Report says:

…Following the SA Government’s deferral of the project, OHPSA wrote off (expensed) $85.7 million of this amount that related to costs incurred under the Hydrogen Jobs Plan Early Contractor Involvement contracts. This accounting treatment recognises that there is insufficient certainty that economic benefits will flow to the State

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:12): The state government commissioned a series of consultancies that make up that $85 million. A lot of that was about the operation and management of a turbine, specifically 200 megawatts of turbine. Members opposite have announced a policy to purchase a 200-megawatt generator, and I will be interested to see their costings when they release their costings in the lead-up to the election, about what they say this will cost the people of South Australia and how it will be operated. Importantly, if they are elected in March and they purchase 200 megawatts of generator, do you know which reports they are going to go to the shelf for and dust off and have a look at? Reports that they are now saying are a waste of money. Because these reports—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: No, that is not what the Auditor-General said. Yelling and interjecting doesn't make it true. Yelling across doesn't make something accurate. Yelling across the chamber is not a substitute for policy.

The Auditor-General is operating within a framework. These costs that we incurred in the operation of how to operate generators and how they will impact in the system—this is information that would be useful when you are operating a generation scheme. When we've got generators in the system, if members opposite are elected they will use these reports and then they will say that they were full of value.

So this is the contradiction we've got right now: buying generators they say is a waste of money, but they are promising that, if they are elected, they are going to buy generators. They will commission consultants' reports about which they are now saying what? They are saying that they are a waste of money. These reports that you say are now impaired are the exact same reports that you would be using to operate generation in the system.

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Again, the member for Chaffey should sit quietly and just scroll through his phone to amuse himself rather than try to intervene in the debate because he does himself no favours. While the Auditor-General was looking at a discrete section of the way this operates, the government does not believe that this is a waste of money. We believe this is a good investment. It is a good investment to invest in generators. Those generators will recover their value in full.

Members opposite are pretending somehow that the generators have no value. They are pretending that the money we have invested in the generators has no value to the people of South Australia. That is not true; that is inaccurate. They do have a value. They will—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Members say, 'How much?' You are the ones who have announced you are buying 200 megawatts of generators and you don't know what it's worth? How can you yell out, 'How much?' if you don't know what it costs? I have to say, this entire debate by members opposite about the generators and about the hydrogen plan reveals their lack of investment in Whyalla. The entire reason we deferred this project to start with was to save the jobs that we had in place now. It was about making sovereign steelmaking in this country remain.

Members opposite who voted with us to protect Whyalla are now bemoaning the fact that we have moved that money into Whyalla and are attempting to say that the money that we have now moved to Whyalla is a waste. It is not a waste. In fact, their only policy on Whyalla was just to hand Sanjeev Gupta more money—just give him more money. In fact, the only policy we have heard from members opposite on Whyalla was the Leader of the Opposition, who had a quick coffee with Sanjeev Gupta and wanted to give him $50 million. That's not a policy.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the leader, the member for Flinders and the member for Morphett, maybe just tone it down a little bit. You were getting a little rowdy there towards the end. The Leader of the Opposition.