Peter Malinauskas has pulled off a political miracle in Whyalla without losing a lick of paint | David Penberthy

Like him or not, Labor or Liberal, you have to admit SA’s Premier is a spectacular tactician, writes David Penberthy.

Whether you like the bloke or not, whether you’re a Labor voter, a Liberal voter or a swinging voter, you would have to concede that Peter Malinauskas is a master political tactician.

The Premier is being hailed by South Australians as a hero for finally standing up to the bluff and bluster of Sanjeev Gupta whose endless empty promises finally wore thin.

Nowhere more so than in Whyalla.

He is the first politician to have belled the cat about GFG’s interminable promises of a rosy future, and to have rightly called BS on it all.

Whatever questions remain about the future of the steelworks, the cost to taxpayers of covering its workers and creditors, and the imperviousness of the Mali plan to legal action by GFG, one fundamental truth remains.

It is a truth put by the Premier and one which I am happy to repeat here because it is logically true.

The people of Whyalla are in much better shape today than they were two days ago.

They, and our state, were being played for fools by a company whose conduct is opaque and whose boss has a demonstrated track record of over-promising and underdelivering.

What we have witnessed in SA politics in the past 48 hours is one of the most stunning political executions the nation has ever seen.

It’s a reminder that nothing gets any self-respecting Labor Right Faction warrior out of bed with a spring in his step like the prospect of a garrotting.

Sanjeev Gupta has dealt with many premiers - Jay Weatherill, Steven Marshall, Malinauskas.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas address the people of Whyalla on Thursday. Picture: NewsWire / Tim Joy

In hindsight he should have had a word with Mike Rann.

Mike could have given him a heads about what to expect, victim as he was of a similarly brutal “time’s up sunshine” from some wet-behind-the-ears union hack back in 2011.

What we have witnessed 14 years on might have been equally brutal, but vastly more complex from a legal perspective. It also had to be executed in total secrecy lest GFG try to scramble its way back into contention by quickly paying off some of its debts or announcing new investments, as it had done in the past when the Government tried to give it the hurry-up over the upkeep and expansion of infrastructure in Whyalla.

Malinauskas has pulled off something of a political miracle in that he has been hailed by many as a hero for blowing up GFG, at the same time he has blown up one of his own major 2022 election promises.

Tim Wendland, a Whyalla local butcher farewells Sanjeev Gupta. Picture: Tim Joy

Hydrogen energy was billed ahead of Labor’s election win as the future of energy in South Australia. It was going to cut power bills to every business in the state. It was going to be clean. It was going to be reliable. It was going to be affordable both in production and delivery.

Yeah, not happening.

The cover of GFG and the steelworks financial woes has been used to kill off a promise which was second only to ambulance ramping as the key Malinauskas vow of 2022.

Malinauskas has done it, I think, without losing a single lick of paint in the eyes of any non-aligned voter.

The mood of South Australia had become one of exhaustion and anger at Gupta and GFG.

That mood had been fanned by the Government itself, a keen partner and facilitator in the creation of the perception that Gupta, with his Sydney mansion and all, was in this for himself.

The thing is though, they were right.

People in Whyalla were for a long time playing nice with Gupta and GFG because they simply hoped it was true that the company was about to turn the corner.

It was almost a case of hope triumphing over the continued demonstration of a bleak reality. The emperor had no clothes.

The full cost of what has just happened to the state is not yet known.

With GFG’s OneSteel arm now in administration, KordaMentha

will have to sift through the wreckage to ascertain how bad things truly are.

You could guess fairly that it will be well above the $300 million figure first reported by The Advertiser last week.

Some people have compared this to another State Bank collapse.

I don’t think the comparison is right.

It would have been potentially another State Bank collapse of not for the fact that Malinauskas, with the full support of the Parliament, had ousted GFG the way he did.

The debts would have piled up, the state of the steelworks would have continued to deteriorate.

Worst of all, the creditors in and around Whyalla would have been left even further out of pocket.

This explains why, at the creditors meeting, when the Premier outlined the assistance package, the 80-odd business people in the room spontaneously erupted in cheering.

These people have done nothing to deserve the crap GFG put them through.

All they have done is made the tactical error of performing work for a bloke in the presumption that they would be paid for it.

You can criticise the Premier over his pie-in-the-sky hydrogen plant, ask whether the whole idea was non-scientific faddish nonsense all along, and remind him of his broken promises about cheaper power bills.

You can accuse him of using this week’s events as a convenient foil for ditching the plant.

But as for the separate issue - the bigger issue - of saving a vital piece of manufacturing infrastructure, and defending the rights of South Australian workers and businesses, the past 48 hours has been a lesson in what leadership looks like.

It’s a point our negative, nit-picking State Opposition Leader might reflect on, as he continues to misread the mood by voting in favour of the Government’s proposal, while doing nothing but rubbish the Government.