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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-11-25 Daily Xml
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Hydrogen Jobs Plan

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:54): My question is to the Premier. Has the Premier broken his promise to create jobs for South Australians through the Hydrogen Jobs Plan? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr PATTERSON: The pre-2022 Hydrogen Jobs Plan policy document details more than 11,000 jobs unlocked as a result of the Hydrogen Jobs Plan.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:54): More people are employed in South Australia than ever before, but we also know that it is not just having more people employed. What we have seen during the life of this government are unemployment rates since our election that have never been seen before in the history of South Australia. In fact, since we were elected we have seen the unemployment rate have a three in front of it in South Australia. Before we were elected that had never happened—and I think we have had it somewhere in the order of 14 or 15 times.

We have more people employed, more people employed in full-time work, and we have the lowest unemployment rates we have ever seen in the history of this state. But here is the one I care about most, and that is what is happening with wages. In South Australia we have traditionally seen our median wage, or our average weekly wage, sit somewhere between 7 per cent and 8 per cent below the national average. We have closed that gap by approximately 250 basis points. So jobs are up, real wages are up.

The shadow minister, would-be champion of net zero and hydrogen and so forth, asks about a policy that pertains to Whyalla. Well, go ask the member for Giles; get in the car with the member for Giles and go up to the city of Whyalla, spend some time walking the streets in the way you haven't in a very long time, and ask them what they think about the government's policy on industrial standing in respect of Whyalla. On your way back home drive through Port Pirie and spend some time with the member for Stuart, and go visit and talk to workers at the smelters in Port Pirie and ask them about the state government's commitment to jobs in the Upper Spencer Gulf. You'll get a similar answer.

On this side of the house we are all too willing to use the power and responsibilities vested in us and to use our authority to intervene where we see it necessary to unlock economic opportunity, not to protect people like Mr Gupta—which the Leader of the Opposition was all too keen to see happen—but rather to intervene to unlock opportunities in the Upper Spencer Gulf. We believe in the economic opportunities around critical metals in Port Pirie. We believe in the opportunities to get green iron happening in Whyalla—

Mr Patterson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Morphett can leave until the end of question time.

The honourable member for Morphett having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: We are willing to do what is required to unlock those opportunities. That includes collaborating with the federal government, that includes crafting a policy that allows us to embrace private sector capital coming into the city of Whyalla in a way that we know is necessary to see MEP1, MEP2, and hopefully MEP3—that is the mine expansion program to get more magnetite out of the ground—but also to see a big lop of private capital going into the steelworks so that we can potentially see DRI, EAF and green iron production. They are serious opportunities: complex policy requirements, yes; active intervention on behalf of government in collaboration with the federal government, sure—but working collaboratively with the private sector to make it happen.

At the election the people of South Australia have a choice. Who is going to do that hard work? Who is going to think about those policy settings appropriately? Us or them? Us or them—that will be the choice. Mind you, the electorate will also have a choice to make about who is going to be able to do that while keeping a rein on fiscal settings: those who delivered four budget surpluses during the life of the government or those who are out there trying to cut a third of state revenue with no explanation about how they are going to pay for it? Those are the choices that are shaping up, and we are looking forward to giving the people of South Australia those options.

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