Peter Malinauskas’ unbelievable pledge to make good on $1 billion in health promises with money saved from scrapping the proposed new job-creating, profit-making Riverbank Arena is completely flawed – and Labor still won’t commit to lower household electricity bills despite spending at least $593 million on an experimental hydrogen power plant.
The Government is only budgeting a total of $79 million until 2025 on the Arena, while Treasurer Rob Lucas said Government analysis has revealed that the actual cost of Labor’s ‘white elephant’ power plant will actually be closer to $1.1 billion – more than all their health promises combined.
“Labor’s entire campaign has been exposed as nothing more than a massive sham,” said Mr Lucas.
“Why would anyone spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a power plant when it won’t reduce power prices for struggling south Australian families?
“In fact, Labor has a history of skyrocketing power bills with electricity increasing by a massive $551 from September 2015 to September 2017 in their last term. In contrast, the Marshall Government has brought down average power bills by $421.
“The choice is now abundantly clear – the Government’s job-creating, profit-making Riverbank Arena… or Labor’s white elephant power plant experiment that even Mr Malinauskas won’t say will lower power prices.
“Labor’s reckless spending – racking up more than $3 billion in unfunded, uncosted promises less than two weeks into the campaign – is the single biggest risk to the state’s strong economic recovery and household and business budgets, which face higher taxes, charges, bills and levies if Labor are elected.
“By contrast, under the Marshall Liberal Government average household SA costs are now about $1,092 per year lower than under the former Labor government due to lower ESL bills, water and electricity bills, CTP costs and higher sports voucher payment.”