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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-05 Daily Xml
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Upper Spencer Gulf

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (15:20): I am almost tempted to respond to some of that. Clearly some of the members opposite have a great deal of difficulty when it comes to telling the difference between correlation and causation, and what is driving and what has driven some of the costs of living pressures—

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HUGHES: —not just in this state but in every other state as well. However, I want to talk about another issue, and that is an issue about generating prosperity in this state. If any of the members opposite had attended Whyalla, Port Augusta or Port Pirie the other week they would have seen the degree of confidence and the degree of enthusiasm about what is being proposed for the Upper Spencer Gulf, how we are looking to build on our natural resource base in that part of the state not just to benefit the Upper Spencer Gulf but also to benefit the state.

The first of the projects is the government-backed project, the world's first hydrogen power plant and associated developments. People in Whyalla were very keen to ask questions about the power plant, and were very keen to see construction start—which is scheduled to start in the final quarter of this year. As a measure of the curiosity, as a measure of the support, over 500 people registered to attend the economic summit in Whyalla on a Sunday evening. I have been to a lot of meetings in Whyalla over the years—and there have been meetings about very controversial subjects—but I would be very hard pressed to name a meeting where that many people turned up.

There were good questions. There were questions about how we manage some of the stresses that come with a very positive thing, about managing growth instead of managing decline, questions about accommodation, questions about health services, all things that will need to be addressed. The big one in Whyalla was the hydrogen power plant, and once again there was discussion about GFG and green iron and green steel, and the massive magnetite resource on our doorstep, as well as the fact that we do have a steelworks and we do have a port in an area of the world with massive energy resources.

The other one was copper, and the potential to grow copper production in this state. We are looking at a threefold increase in copper production in South Australia. Obviously there is a way to go, with BHP now owning Carrapateena. We went out and had a look at Oak Dam and all the drilling rigs that are now out at Oak Dam, and of course there was a visit to Olympic Dam. If there was a threefold increase in copper production in this state, that would have a massive impact.

Of course, the enablers of all this are those other natural resources we have in abundance, and one is renewable energy. When we talk about cost of living pressures, it is interesting to reflect that over the last quarter the wholesale generating cost in South Australia was amongst the lowest in Australia, far lower than both Queensland and New South Wales, with their dependence on black coal. Victoria is also moving in to a reasonable space as well.

That is because of the penetration of renewables in this state, and that penetration of renewables in this state is going to set us up when it comes to developing stuff like hydrogen, when it comes to developing green iron and green steel, and when it comes to developing our copper resources in this state. In the north of the state it is highly prospective for other potential copper resources.

For the Upper Spencer Gulf this is a really exciting time. Now we have to work through some of the practical on-the-ground issues and with really tight time constraints generate the accommodation that is going to be needed for the influx of construction workers. When we look at the hydrogen power plant alone in Whyalla, we are talking about up to a thousand workers taking part in the development of that world-first initiative. These are positive things to be engaged in, in order to ensure prosperity for generations to come.

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