Premier Malinauskas has used the crisis at the Whyalla Steelworks to break one of his flagship election commitments and “delay” his Hydrogen Hoax.
In reality, the Premier had already broken ALL of the four main promises in his Hydrogen Jobs Plan before the issues at the Whyalla steelworks escalated.
Now South Australians are expected to believe another hoax.
The illusion that the fake $600m hydrogen budget is all going to be recovered and allocated to the support package for the Whyalla Steelworks.
It’s another ruse so the Premier can avoid taking responsibility for the huge amount of time and money that has been wasted on his hydrogen fantasy over the last 3 years while South Australian families and business are paying the highest electricity bills on record.
Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that South Australians will be left holding a massive bill for Premier Malinauskas being distracted by hydrogen over the last 3 years.
As part of this deception the Energy Minister, who has been in charge both times the Whyalla steel works has gone into administration,
He expects us to believe that the now redundant turbines that have been ordered for the failed hydrogen plant will be sold at the same or higher price than the government paid for them
These are highly specced aero derivative turbines designed to run on 100% hydrogen which the next purchaser to run them commercially will run on gas not on political spin and hot air.
But the 2024-25 State Budget reveals this trickery and only a fraction of the money spent is recoverable.
Up to June 2024 the Government estimated $126 million had been spent of the $593 million. When I asked the Minister in Estimates for a breakdown of this huge amount,
he was forced to admit that
$25 million was paid for a deposit for the turbines.
The remaining $101 million had been spent primarily on engineering and design work for a project that hadn’t been undertaken any where else in the world.
But with the project shelved – that’s $100 million dollars that won’t come back into the coffers of South Australians.
Under a normal, orderly engineering planning process the project would have undergone a Front End Engineering Design to get the project to a stage where it can be assessed against a business case to see if it stacks up technically and commercially then make a final investment decision to proceed or not.
But not this government when they have got taxpayers providing the funding
– they rushed into an Early Contractor Involvement agreement with ATCO Australia, BOC Linde and Epic Energy throwing money at each for engineering design work to speed up the process.
With $101 million spent to June last year, South Australians can then only wonder how much more money has been spent on engineering and design work from July 2024 to when the project was shelved 8 months later in February this year.
It could be another $50 million.
It could be much, much more.
At the same time the Office of Hydrogen, in between sending their CEO on cuttlefish exhibitions, had spent $30.7 million up to June 2024.
This $30 million is in addition to the $593 million budgeted capital works, it reinforces how much money the Government were throwing at this now failed hydrogen dream.
Combined, by June 2024 $130 million had been spent on Premier Malinauskas’ hydrogen plans with nothing now to show for this,
With many 10’s of millions of dollars more that has been spent between July and February on engineering and design works that now will also be lost
blasting a huge hole in the supposed $600 million that is to be transferred from the failed hydrogen fantasy.
Shockingly, to keep the hydrogen hoax going and try to justify this wasted spending the Premier is saying the project has just been delayed
That just means South Australians may end up paying twice.
We know his hydrogen electricity project was soaring over $1 billion already.
Despite global energy companies walking away from hydrogen our arrogant Premier is in denial and wants to continue.
Future taxpayers remain on the hook for his $1 billion fantasy, while currently paying record high electricity prices
Premier Malinauskas needs to
