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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-02-05 Daily Xml
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Gupta, Mr S.

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:56): My question is to the Premier. Is the state prosperity plan dependent on Mr Sanjeev Gupta?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:56): No, it is not dependent upon Mr Gupta at all; in fact, I think any proposition that is aimed at the state's prosperity would be unwise to vest all of its hopes and ambitions in one individual man, so no. But of course the steelworks we see as being a critical piece of economic infrastructure for the state of South Australia, and we would very much like the steelworks and the surrounding assets, being an integrated operation, including the magnetite mine, to be up and running at their full potential.

We talk about the steelworks a lot, as we well should because it's so fundamentally important to the nation's economy, but we should also reflect on the mining resource. As the Minister for Mining talked to earlier, this is a high-quality globally significant magnetite resource and its value is not realised if it is in the ground. We want it out of the ground. We want it mined. We want it generating all of the new wealth for our state that it is capable of, which is great for the government because it generates a revenue stream for Treasury.

It's great for the economy more broadly because it delivers new wealth for the state of South Australia and the people engaged in the process, but it's actually good for the world because, not too dissimilarly from copper, magnetite is an important natural resource for the decarbonisation of the global economy. You cannot reach the Paris targets, you cannot reach net zero by 2050, unless you have a program to decarbonise steel production.

As we have said repeatedly, steel production is worth 8 to 10 per cent of global carbon emissions. To decarbonise steel production, we know that one of the most effective and efficient ways to do that is to use magnetite rather than hematite in that process, and we are home to it. Similarly with copper, the copper price continues to improve for global commodity markets. Even notwithstanding some of the challenges we see in global markets at the moment as a result of a bit of policy changing around the world, one of the strong-performing commodities is copper. That is a sign of the fact that the copper is in demand because the world needs a lot more copper because of the electrification that is happening around the world.

That is why, of course, we see BHP's continued and repeated demonstration in recent months and years towards realising the copper potential in our state. It just so happens that the resources that the rest of the world wants and needs we have a significant proportion of in this state. We want to realise that wealth. That means that needs to be mined. That means ideally that shouldn't just be mined: we would love to see them beneficiated in South Australia, which generates more economic opportunity. Does all of that hinge on Mr Gupta alone? No. But the resource that sits under the control of GFG, is that important? Absolutely.

This government—any government—would be wise to contemplate the resources that sit below the ground, which are ultimately owned by the people of South Australia, and that the value of those resources is best realised where government works in collaboration and in partnership with the private sector. You do not want the South Australian government, you do not want a government, being the miner, you do not want the government running the steelworks. That is not desirable. You want people in the private sector who have the skills and the capability, the access to markets globally, to unlock that potential in concert with the government. We see ourselves as being an important custodian of that resource, and that is why we care very much about who owns it.

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