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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-02-05 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Hydrogen Power Plant

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (15:10): As I have outlined previously in parliament, the Premier has completely changed the nature and the scope of what he promised to South Australians at the election on his hydrogen power plant.

There were four main promises put up in that policy document—the 2021 election promises—and all four of those promises have either been broken or they are at serious risk of being broken and they are in doubt. This is hugely concerning for South Australians.

The costings done at the time, by this now Malinauskas Labor government back in 2021, under questioning from the opposition, have now been shown to be flawed and it is highly likely that this hydrogen power plant could cost upwards of $1 billion, in addition, with significant delays to the project. Of course, as the government has admitted, this power plant, this significant $1 billion spending, is not aimed at bringing down power prices for households or small businesses here in South Australia to the point where now we have the Malinauskas Labor government changing their commentary around the reason for this plant, wanting to talk all about green steel, never about their hydrogen power plant. When did you last hear them talk about that? Remember, back in 2021, green steel was never a core focus of their policy when it was announced. All the focus was on electricity generation. In fact, when you trawl through that document of 20 pages, all you find is one mention of green steel in that whole 20-page policy.

It is clear, though, the Premier and his hapless minister are having to now make things up on the go, just to try to justify this massive spending that taxpayers here in South Australia are on the hook for. Really, this project has become an amorphous blob. Every time the opposition probes on one part, on a flaw in the plan, it morphs into another thing. They are making it up as they go.

Of course, we have questioned the Premier in parliament as to when green steel will be produced in Whyalla. It certainly will not be produced by 2030. In the questioning just yesterday, there was obfuscation. Going back before Christmas, the Premier really belled the cat when he revealed, 'You are probably looking at two decades away.' That's of little comfort to taxpayers, knowing that they are spending massive amounts of money now, when their power bills are going through the roof.

Sanjeev Gupta, what has he got to say about this? He said that the electric arc furnace and the direct reduced iron plant are dependent on increased gas supply into Whyalla; not hydrogen, increased gas supply. It is obvious, because any path to low emission steel in Australia has to be produced economically and also at a scale—not just on a spreadsheet, not in a lab—but in a big industrial plant, so in the next two decades the only way you can have a transition is from coal to gas no matter how much this Premier tries to spin a coal to green hydrogen transition.

Let me be clear, the opposition supports a coal to gas transition; it's sensible, it's economic. By sheer necessity at the moment we have talked about the massive problems going on with the steel furnace here and to keep that steelworks going. GFG are throwing all their resources at just getting the furnace going, running on coking coal. They need to do that for probably five-plus years, rather than spending what is a significant, massive capital investment on principally the Premier's green dreams.

In question time today we asked was Sanjeev Gupta consulted about this plan back in 2021, and what we found is they could not really answer it, and then they said GFG had other plans. Now here we have the government, the Premier, the energy minister, despite the four broken promises and all the delays that fall at the feet of this Labor government, trying to blame someone else. What rings true as well, how about the promise on ramping? Blaming other people. They are always blaming other people, this government, never theirs.

The Premier was starting to get angry though because GFG is not realising his great dreams. The problem is he has got sucked into this green dream; it is now turning into a green nightmare. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, there is a sucker born every minute. Why is it that there are so many suckers born in this Malinauskas Labor government to go along with this, led by the Premier and led by the energy minister? It is a real concern for South Australians, who are up for $1 billion. We have got energy companies that have pulled out, but the Malinauskas Labor government and the Premier are arrogantly continuing down this path.

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