House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-06-16 Daily Xml

Contents

Arrium

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:28): Supplementary, sir: has the Premier sought any advice from Arrium as to when the strategic review will be completed and announced to the people of South Australia?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (14:28): I am in regular contact with the chief executive of Arrium, and I was very disappointed to see the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, because the workforce at Arrium and the workforce in Whyalla are working very, very hard to get the costs of operating that iron ore mine at Arrium down.

Make no mistake, Arrium makes no apology in terms of saying that of all the governments it deals with the one government that is always along, standing by its side, is this government. When they seek to put feedstock into their steelworks, we don't charge them royalties. When it comes—

Ms CHAPMAN: Point of order: relevance. The Premier was asked a very specific question about the expected date of delivery of the strategic report, nothing to do with—

The SPEAKER: Yes; I uphold the point of order.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The chief executive, Mr Roberts, was very keen to let me know that the strategic review shouldn't be taken in the context of focusing entirely on Whyalla. His views are, sir, that Arrium has many operations across Australia and he wished that as many of the operations were as well supported by those governments as the ones in South Australia are by our government. As the review undertakes itself, Mr Speaker, we here will make things available to the market, but I want to point out again that prematurely coming out and saying that there will be massive job losses in Whyalla is simply untrue.

Ms CHAPMAN: Point of order: you have already ruled on this and he is now deliberately defying your ruling.

The SPEAKER: I will listen carefully—he is finished. Supplementary, member for Stuart.