Personal Explanation

Hydrogen

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:24): I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: Reading the article in today's Advertiser by Kathryn Bermingham, 'Deal or no deal', I had some thoughts that I felt are important for South Australian members of the public to know and, as such, I have prepared a public letter as follows:

Firstly Kathryn is right, you do have the right to know. I can only speak for myself because I did not discuss my position on hydrogen with Frank. But…

You have the right to know because, from what I can tell, I'm the only person mentioned in this article who did tell the Hon. Mr Simms in advance I would not be supporting his call for an inquiry.

You have the right to know that I focus my energy on improving what I thought was a good piece of legislation that has unprecedented potential for the state.

You have the right to know I don't share the Greens' views when it comes to hydrogen, whether it be blue, green, pink, gold or any other colour of the rainbow.

You have the right to know the government agreed to my changes because, as everyone knows, when I support something, I will always use my position to extract something more for stakeholders involved. In this instance, those stakeholders were our fisheries and aquaculture industries—you know, the ones that generate in excess of $600 million in direct economic value, employ over 6000 FTE equivalent jobs in coastal regional communities and are the lifeblood of our regions. Not to mention the multiplier effect in flow on economic value they provide to the rest of South Australia. Those changes that I secured would put them on a level playing field with our pastoralists—nothing more, nothing less.

You have the right to know that I'm bloody proud of the outcome.

You have the right to know that my word is my word—and the Hon. Mr Simms had my word that I would not be supporting his call for an inquiry in advance of the debate.

And, you have the right to note that I'm not the Greens, I'm not the Liberals, I'm not One Nation—I'm me, and I will always make my decisions based on the best interests of this state.