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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-11-15 Daily Xml
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Hartley Electorate

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (15:27): Certainly there have been devastating scenes right across my electorate after the storms of the weekend, and I want to take this opportunity to thank our emergency services personnel for their tremendous efforts, people in organisations like our SES, our CFS and our MFS who have done an amazing job.

I also want to thank SAPN and local councils for working together to restore power as quickly as possible. Of course, we do unfortunately have a number of residents who are still without power. I do encourage anyone who is not getting the communication they want to please make contact with me and I would be happy to follow up their concern.

I also rise to speak today because I have received particular correspondence from yet another resident, Gina, who is still without power. She is unable to cook, her girls are unable to study and her family is unable to use the most basic household utilities. In some respects it actually does feel like the 2016 statewide blackout all over again in these pockets. We still have homes without power, and not only that but businesses have lost thousands in lost produce and other potential revenue.

We know that South Australians pay more than any other state for energy, and Labor cannot even keep the lights on in these areas. What is Labor's answer to this energy crisis? We have heard about a $593 million hydrogen facility, and they call it clean, green hydrogen. We are led to believe that this grand hydrogen plan is going to fix everything, but we have seen a recent, very thorough, Productivity Commission inquiry into South Australia's renewable energy competitiveness that actually might say something a bit different.

We know that the commission's central purpose is to provide the Premier with independent, evidence-based economic advice on how to improve our state's economic growth and in turn South Australian income as well. What does this report say about this grand hydrogen plan by the Labor Party? The report says that South Australia first and foremost does not have a commercially managed port necessarily suitable for exporting hydrogen.

If I look at finding 27, it states, 'The lack of a commercial port is a constraint on the development of a large-scale green hydrogen export sector.' This is product export 101. It goes on to say that the barriers to renewable energy development identified in the report make it harder for South Australia to then take advantage of any competitive advantage from its wind and solar endowments. It goes on to say:

The favourable endowments of solar and wind do not guarantee that South Australia will be able to secure an economic advantage from the global energy transition.

Finding 4 states:

The South Australian region of the national electricity market has insufficient commercial and industrial load to absorb the solar generation on sunny spring and summer days. This poses a risk to system stability and increases electricity costs to consumers.

So the expert opinion is crystal clear, and it carries with it a weight that this government cannot ignore. The report goes on say that, out of 92 unique hydrogen projects, South Australia only has five listed, the smallest number out of any state, and that South Australia does not have a large-scale extraction workforce creating a potential lack of readily available skilled workers to support any hydrogen projects. Is it even financially viable? Finding 25 of the report states:

An export-scale green hydrogen plant would increase GSP by $1.9 billion and create an additional 4,900 jobs, conditional on market prices for hydrogen being high enough to make its production financially viable.

This is the thing. By the looks of this, we simply do not have the budget to go it alone at the moment, which is certainly likely to continue to be the case under a Labor government. Finding 31 talks about challenges in South Australia's budgetary position. It says that it constrains the extent to which the government can support the development of a local green hydrogen sector. In many respects, this report has been absolutely scathing about Labor's ambitions.

What we are coming to see here is that Labor's hydrogen plan is just a bunch of hot air. We know that you need a commercial port to take the hydrogen somewhere, and guess what? If we need to take the hydrogen further away to different jurisdictions, there are jurisdictions that are closer to ours, such as Port Hedland, that can take hydrogen where it needs to go. If you take that hydrogen further, guess what? It costs more. That is called a competitive disadvantage. It is not rocket science, but to a Labor government it may as well be.

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