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

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:45): My question is to the Premier. Has the Premier broken his promise to deliver a hydrogen power plant? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr PATTERSON: The pre-2022 state election Hydrogen Jobs Plan policy document claimed that Labor will ensure their hydrogen power plant would be operational by the end of 2025.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:46): We make no apology because Whyalla is one of the most strategic cities anywhere in Australia. Whyalla has had a very rough run of it over the last time or so since the administration of Arrium. Think of the counterfactual today: that we had let the blast furnace go cold and that we had listened to the Leader of the Opposition and just handed over more money to Gupta. What is the Liberal Party's policy for Whyalla? Do what Gupta says we should do.

Quite prudently, we suspended the Hydrogen Jobs Plan and invested that money into Whyalla because the idea of proceeding so we can tick a box on an election commitment, while we see the jobs we have in Whyalla go, would have been appalling. There is no-one else anywhere in Australia who thinks that our intervention in Whyalla has been anything other than a success.

I also point out the other counterfactual: imagine what would have happened to Whyalla had we not been in office. Imagine if it had been Rob Lucas or Steven Marshall sitting here, or even worse Treasurer David Speirs sitting over here, thinking about Whyalla. Contemplate that for a moment.

Hydrogen is something that not only has the South Australian government been very supportive of but other members have as well. I have done this to the house on numerous occasions, but I think it is timely that we remind the parliament about a few public comments about hydrogen. There have been lots of negative comments about hydrogen, but I want to give some positive comments around hydrogen. Apparently, hydrogen has emerged as an area of future growth. It is something that people think is very, very important. That person was the Leader of the Opposition and he said that when they were in government and they were investing in a hydrogen hub. Where? The Upper Spencer Gulf. He nods his head, yes, that's right, excellent.

Of course, on 5 May he talked about the importance of a successful investment in the Port Bonython Hydrogen Hub and about what a great initiative it was of the previous Marshall government. Who was that? That was the shadow energy minister who asked a question. So do I apologise for cancelling the Hydrogen Jobs Plan to invest in Whyalla? No, of course not, because what is more important? The entire reason we chose Whyalla for the location of the electrolyser is because Whyalla's future has led to decarbonising the steelmaking process.

There are two ways of decarbonising the steelmaking process. To move away from metallurgical coal, we should go to natural gas. You get dramatic reductions on carbon emissions, but you don't remove all carbon emissions. The next step is hydrogen, and when you use hydrogen in the removing of the oxides to beneficiate the iron oxides to iron, the by-product is water, not carbon dioxide.

So this isn't a matter of politics, it's a matter of chemistry and physics. So, yes, we cancelled the Hydrogen Jobs Plan to save Whyalla. It was the right decision every day of the week and twice on Sundays, and if we had to do it again, we would. Of course we would. I would just point out to the shadow member that you voted for it. You voted for our intervention, so why criticise it now?

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