Australia news LIVE: ASIO boss issues dire terror threat warning; PM to announce $500m rescue plan for Whyalla steelworks

BlueScope is among the potential buyers of the embattled Whyalla steelworks, says SA Premier Peter Malinauskas, as he admits he had hopes that owner’s GFG Alliance would be able to deliver on their Green steels commitments.

Speaking to ABC Radio National the morning after he announced a state government takeover of the steelwork, Malinauskas confirmed he has been in talks with various potential buyers.

While stating he wouldn’t go into specifics, the SA premier said BlueScope is a “really good Australian company”.

“It’s publicly listed, it’s well managed,” Malinauskas said.

“But there’s more than just BlueScope out there that we think could be a potential buyer, and that’s where the work’s got to begin.”

Malinausakas defended the state government’s approach to the steelworks so far, when asked if he was too willing to rely on forecasts from Whyalla’s owner, Sanjay Gupta’s GFG Alliance, when making funding commitments.

“I think there has been caution, particularly given some of the reporting of what’s happened with GFG assets globally,” Malinauskas said.

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“The South Australian government, under my leadership and my liberal predecessor, Stephen Marshall, we had on the table $50 million to partner with the steelworks in its transformation, but that not $1 of that was ever expended because GFG was never able to meet the criteria in order for that money to be allocated.”

Malinauskas says he was among the people who “put hope in GFG realising its own ambitions”.

In April 2023, Gupta announced the steelworks would switch its coal-based steelmaking to a green system using an electric arc furnace – a transition that experts estimated would cost $500 million to complete.

“You get to a point where hope has to be matched by action and reality and verifiable plans. And we, we got to a place that we just weren’t seeing that. And then you combine that with people not getting paid on the ground, and it does invite a government intervention, and that’s what we executed yesterday.”