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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-02-07 Daily Xml
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Upper Spencer Gulf

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (14:25): My question is to the Premier. How is the Malinauskas government engaging with the communities of the Upper Spencer Gulf?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:25): On this side of the house, when it comes to regional engagement, it's less about hashtags and more about serious, substantial policy to help realise all of the economic opportunity—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Hartley!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —associated with our regions. This government is wholly committed to capitalising on the big opportunities we see in the Upper Spencer Gulf. I have been very clear that we see the South-East of our state as being a great source of economic opportunity, but so is the Upper Spencer Gulf. The Upper Spencer Gulf is home to some extraordinary natural resources that have not yet been fully developed to realise all of their potential. So starting in only a few weeks' time, on Sunday 25 February, Monday, the 26th and Tuesday the 27th, we have a major economic summit happening across the three Upper Spencer Gulf cities, starting in Whyalla on the Sunday night, Port Augusta on the Monday, and Pirie on the Tuesday.

This is a big chance for communities in the Upper Spencer Gulf to come and not just hear from the government but actively engage with the government about how we are going to roll out the policy effort that we have been working so hard on over the course of the last couple of years. There is a purpose-built cabinet committee to exclusively deal with the Upper Spencer Gulf and the economic opportunity around it.

We know that it is home to the world's most abundant supply of coincident wind and solar, giving us the opportunity to be able to produce hydrogen cheaper than most other parts of the world, which is immediately adjacent to a steelworks that is committed to decarbonising, which is immediately adjacent to a magnetite mine, which is central to the green iron production, which is not far away from one of the world's best copper deposits where this government has actively funded additional examination in recent months.

We know that BHP is committed to increasingly invest its energy and effort and, indeed, its capital into the decarbonisation trend that is happening around the world. All of that together, with government intervention and government support, can amount to a comprehensive policy to reindustrialise the northern part of our state, a comprehensive policy to take green energy and the decarbonisation of industry globally and materialise it in a way that sets the state up to generate a lot more new wealth, improve the standards of living for our people, and a lot more jobs.

We are serious about it. There has been a lot of talk about decarbonisation and the green energy revolution. We really can be the heart of it here in South Australia in a way that delivers dividends for the standard of living for our people. We have already seen South Australia catapulted over the course of the last two years to be the number one economy in the country. We have already seen South Australia outperform the rest of the country in a big way in terms of exports. We can set that up to be a long-term trend, a long-term outcome, but it takes serious policy and big effort. We have that ambition and, more than that, we have some substantial announcements that we look forward to making in the Upper Spencer Gulf across the Major Economic Summit, because we believe in governments taking action to take decarbonisation globally into real action locally that delivers for the South Australian people, because it's not about a hashtag, it's about setting us up for the long term.

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