South Australia’s Energy and Mining Strategy is a confident statement of the potential for this key sector to build on their enduring strengths, world leadership and capacity for innovation to power a speedy recovery from the unprecedented setbacks of the past year. The combination of last summer’s bushfires, the COVID-19 pandemic response and the recent collapse in oil and gas prices has challenged the resilience of our community, economy and energy and mining industries. Yet their resilience in the face of these combined challenges has reaffirmed their capacity to support the state through extraordinary times and offer a pathway to recovery and prosperity. The rapid and significant sector adjustments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has ensured safe worker operating environments, contributed to containing the virus spread, and resulted in maintained essential energy supplies and mineral production. Attention is turning to economic recovery and our longer-term economic growth. Industry began providing its suggestions for improving the productive capacity of the energy and mining sector in 2019 in response to the Growth State: Our Plan for Prosperity and its ambition to accelerate economic activity towards a sustainable three per cent annual growth rate. DEM has distilled that response, captured initially in the feedback received on the Energy and Mining Consultation Paper then further refined in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic into South Australia’s Energy and Mining Strategy. The work of Infrastructure SA in developing a 20-year Infrastructure Strategy and the ongoing market reforms of the Energy Council and the Energy Security Board have also informed this strategy. The strategy identifies the areas that industry believes the government needs to strengthen to achieve the increase in economic activity that will put South Australia firmly on a growth trajectory. The strategy also sets out the actions the government has already begun to roll out in response to industry and develop further policies and programs. South Australia’s Energy Solution, the Accelerated Discovery Initiative, Battery and Emerging Minerals Strategy and the Electric Vehicle Action Plan foreshadowed in the 2019-2020 State Budget are included in this strategy. Existing industry initiatives include the Copper Strategy, Magnetite Strategy, South Australian Hydrogen Action Plan and the Roundtable for Oil and Gas. Energy and mining is one of nine sectors identified as key contributors to the Growth State ambitions. The Marshall Liberal government will respond to sector strategies developed to support Growth State with carefully considered commitments under the growth enablers of trade and investment, skills and innovation, infrastructure, and land, water and environment. The core strategic aims are to improve the productive capacity of our resource ex porting companies and the supply chain businesses they support, while creating a modern energy system that lowers costs, encourages efficiency and assists in delivering Australia’s targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Energy and mining is a diverse and significant sector of the South Australian economy. It contributes $9.2 billion or 8.3 per cent of our economic output through energy generation, storage, distribution and retail services, mineral resources, extractive materials, oil and gas, value-added processing and products from resources, equipment, technology and services, and direct construction of new projects. The sector contributes $299 million in royalties, $5.32 billion in exports and employs more than 43,900 people. The government will focus on: • Trade and investment – promoting the state’s energy and resource potential to overseas audiences, growing South Australia’s hydrogen economy and developing critical minerals for a sustainable economy • Infrastructure – facilitating infrastructure to unlock energy and resource sector growth, including coordinated infrastructure corridors, sealing the Strzelecki Track, an electric vehicle action plan and a smart energy storage program • Land, water and environment – water supplies for mining, carbon capture, utilisation and storage and other contributions to a state climate change strategy, fostering a better relationship between industry, traditional landowners and other land users, and contributing to the circular economy • Skills and innovation – connecting industry with opportunities to innovate, developing our workforce capabilities through both the Industry Skills Council and the Resources and Engineering Skills Alliance, and supporting science, technology, engineering and mathematics scholars through high school and university.