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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-05-30 Daily Xml
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Mining Investment

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (15:15): I rise today to talk about the Hydrogen Roadmap that was developed by the previous government. I will go into detail on that and call upon the current government to commit to the Hydrogen Roadmap as it has been an incredibly good initiative, especially for regional South Australia. Before touching on that, once again the Minister for Energy and Mining has reflected upon the previous government and the impact he says it had on investment decisions in this state.

He mentioned this in the context of the blackout that occurred and a number of our big companies: Nyrstar, Arrium—as it was at the time; in fact, it was in administration at the time—and, of course, Olympic Dam. Very shortly after the blackout, I was at the Arrium site up in Whyalla. Indeed, I was there with the then treasurer because of the crisis they were facing. What bothers me is this constant rewriting of history, referring to the blackout as 'the Labor blackout' when, in fact, it was the result of a very particular set of weather conditions that knocked out major transmission assets in this state. It was pretty disgraceful—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HUGHES: —on the part of the Liberals, especially the federal Liberals, without the benefit of any analysis, to just come out and attack South Australia the way they did. We did not see any of those at Arrium, we did not see any of those up at Olympic Dam—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Hammond!

Mr HUGHES: —and we did not see any of those down at Nyrstar. It is interesting to reflect on the comments made today by the Minister for Energy and Mining that suddenly everything is going to be okay now. He seems to forget that a lot of major investment going on in this state predated, and predated by a long way, the new government. I take a very keen interest in the investment in my area. In the context of a state Labor government, we saw major investment on the part of OZ Minerals in Carrapateena, with a more than $900 million commitment to that particular development.

It was a development that, I will say once again, required a little bit of state Labor initiative in terms of support for exploration to discover that resource in partnership with Rudy Gomez through the PACE program. Olympic Dam, a $650 million investment, was also committed to during the term of the last government and set the groundwork, we hope, for what might well be a $2.3 billion investment. Of course, during the course of the previous Labor government, we had a number of companies going through the bidding process to acquire Arrium.

We know that Sanjeev Gupta and his company won that particular bid, and he has flagged the potential for major investment in this state. All this happened under the previous government. I said, on the previous occasion I got up to hammer this theme, that it would actually be beneficial to us as a state if we could acknowledge and give credit where credit is due. That is largely with the private sector, but also with the framework and some of the initiatives that were pursued by the previous Labor government.

I am sure that this new government will do some things that are good, and I have said that previously. When they do, we should give credit because I think the public is sick of the argy-bargy, the pointscoring and the rest of it. We are all going to do some good. I happen to believe that on this side we will end up doing more good over the long run than those on the other side. That is a difference in opinion, and it is a difference in the sorts of principles we pursue and those opposite pursue, but clearly there is a significant overlap.

I did not get to the Hydrogen Roadmap, but I did think it was important to correct the record to a degree, given the comments from the Minister for Energy and Mining. Come my next grievance, I will speak lyrically about the fantastic Hydrogen Roadmap, and I hope that this state government commits to that particular road map.

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