MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Mr VENNING (Grey) (15:33): I rise in support of this important matter of public importance from the member for Wannon. In February this year, the Prime Minister came to Whyalla and looked the workers in the eye and said, 'I've got your back.' Today that same prime minister was too gutless to answer my question. Also today, this government couldn't even send an assistant minister, let alone Minister Bowen, to talk about this important matter.
Today is a day of national reflection. Administrators confirmed that Whyalla's blast furnace will never be relit. More than 600 workers are losing their jobs, and Australia has lost its structural-steel-making capability.
Behind those numbers are boilermakers, electricians, riggers and apprentices—people I represent, people who have spent years building their skills and supporting their families. The losses don't stop there. They run through every business—the contractors, the cafes, the sporting clubs, the schools.
Labor promised the people of Whyalla an orderly transition from the failures of GFG. They were delivered anything but. It shouldn't have ended this way.
Whyalla, up until this week, made 75 per cent of Australia's structural steel. It is the only place in the country that makes rail. More than a billion dollars of taxpayer money has gone into the steelworks since it entered administration.
Money was not the problem. The problem was the fundamentals and the ideology. Steel is made with energy—so is aluminium, so is cement.
Under this government, South Australia has the highest prices of power and gas in the industrial world. When the default market offer came out in May, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy told us that, because of renewables, prices were coming down in every jurisdiction. Well, he told another mistruth.
He forgot about South Australia, the renewable capital of the nation and the only jurisdiction to see power prices increase. Just down the road from Whyalla is the Middleback Ranges mine that supplies the steelworks. When the wind drops and the sun goes down, the energy costs too much, so they stopped the crusher.
Rostering a workforce around the weather should not be the reality in Australia. It is not how you run a modern, competitive mine and steelworks. A new furnace will not fix that on its own.
An electric arc furnace uses a boatload of electricity and uses a boatload of gas. Unless we get the prices down of both, the next owner will only inherit the same issues. Then there is the carbon tax.
The Safeguard Mechanism applies to Whyalla. So, while the government is bailing out the steelworks on the one hand, they are taxing it with the other. Whyalla was promised a green hydrogen revolution.
What they were delivered was a hydrogen hoax—$9 billion of taxpayer money invested into a pipe dream across this country. In South Australia, $600 million was poured into a hydrogen plant at Whyalla that was quietly shelved in the shadows of the steelworks administration. It was the great cover up of 25 February.
Not one electron was generated, and now we have more than 600 workers in Whyalla without a job. Why is it that Whyalla and regional communities continue to take hit after hit for this minister's green dreams? Why is it that Whyalla Steelworks and other manufacturers continue to lose their jobs overseas because of this minister's green dreams and net zero ideology.
In 2023, Minister Bowen had this to say about green hydrogen: Green hydrogen will play a crucial role in our clean energy transformation and will create jobs and spur investment in regional Australia. In 2024, he said: Hydrogen is central to the Australian government's vision for a Future Made in Australia. He also said that he was disappointed and surprised at the Queensland government's decision to pull hydrogen funding.
So clearly he's a big supporter of hydrogen. But then we get to 2026, and what do you think Minister Bowen said? Yesterday, he said— Mr Gregg interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): That is correct.
I will ask the member to be very mindful going forward. Mr VENNING: Yesterday, he said that he 'never quite bought all the hype on green hydrogen'. That's a bloody insult to my constituents.
(Time expired) Mr Rob Mitchell: That was a waste of five minutes. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for McEwen, that was very unhelpful and unnecessary. The member for Solomon has the call.
Mr Venning interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have dealt with the matter, thank you, and I asked the member for Solomon to proceed.