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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-10-29 Daily Xml
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Nyrstar

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (17:13): My question is to the Treasurer. Does the Treasurer still feel it is appropriate to provide an underwriting facility to the Nyrstar project in Port Pirie?

The SPEAKER: The Treasurer can share his feelings with the house.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (17:13): Thank you, sir. I want to thank the member for his question and his commitment to regional communities, like his support for the more than half a billion dollars of private investment in Port Pirie. In May this year, I was honoured to travel with the Premier to Port Pirie to stand shoulder to shoulder with the member for Frome to announce an agreement that had been reached with Nyrstar to finance the Port Pirie transformation project.

The project underpins the future of this important regional centre and the health and environmental outcomes of the local community. The announcement followed extensive negotiations with Nyrstar. The agreement we reached provided this international company with the confidence that it needed to invest over half a billion dollars to replace the smelter in Port Pirie with state-of-the-art technology. Congratulations to the member for Frome on saving his community. This agreement required an innovative approach to industry assistance.

As part of the financing package, the South Australian government provided a third-party funding guarantee for about $291 million of the total investment, with the risk management supported by EFIC. I am pleased to say that Nyrstar announced to its shareholders in Europe just last week that progress is continuing on this important project for regional South Australia.

I have been asked about the appropriateness of recent commentary about the arrangement with Nyrstar and, yes, recent comments by the member for Grey, Mr Rowan Ramsey MP, have been brought to my attention. Mr Ramsey is apparently of the view that it is 'highly likely' that the commonwealth's EFIC would have funded Nyrstar for the Port Pirie upgrade. That is simply not true—that is simply not true. I had Andrew Robb in my office telling me they were out, and apparently Rowan was running around telling everyone, 'No, no, no, they were in.' So, either the minister is right, or he is right.

I can speak with some certainty about this as someone who was involved intimately in the process of reaching an agreement with Nyrstar. I have met with the company, the local community, and industry experts, many, many times about this project, and I can say with the utmost certainty that Nyrstar's investment in Port Pirie would not have gone ahead without the hard work and dedication of the Minister for Regional Development, the member for Frome.

From day one, the member for Frome has advocated strongly for an outcome that secures not only the future of Port Pirie but also the future of the thousands of families that rely on Nyrstar's continued presence in South Australia for their livelihood. I can also say that the enthusiasm and support of the previous federal government in negotiating a positive outcome for Port Pirie was clearly not evident following the election of the Abbott government.

However, we persisted in our negotiations, and we reached a landmark agreement at a time when the commonwealth had turned its back on the project, just as they had turned their back on Holden and just as they are threatening to turn their back on Techport and our defence industry and a decision on the future of our submarine fleet.

As a result of our persistence, Nyrstar has been given the confidence to secure external lenders, with an assurance that their funding contribution is underwritten by the South Australian government. We achieved this not by directly funding the project but by providing certainty. Even now Liberal members ridicule this agreement. Yet when this government facilitates a major investment by an overseas company in the future of our state's resources sector, what do we hear from the commonwealth and some backbenchers from the opposition? Ridicule, derision, scorn and, for the local member who tirelessly worked to make this happen, they try and take away the credit from him—completely unfair. The prosperity of our state should be above petty politics.

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