26 Aug KAP calls out Liberals on dirty coal games

The LNP needs to make clear its position on the future of coal-fired power in Queensland and stop playing politics with the issues of power affordability, reliability and sustainability, Katter’s Australian Party Leader and Traeger MP Robbie Katter has said.

Fronting the media today in Mackay, Mr Katter said Federal and State LNP politicians had been sending mixed signals to Queenslanders and enough was enough.

“It’s been all over the news this week that Federal LNP members have been running around North Queensland pushing for a $3.3 million grant for a feasibility study into a proposed clean coal-fired power station at Collinsville,” Mr Katter said.

“They have been spending time trying to lobby North Queensland Labor senators, including Cairns-based Nita Green, to back the project – we know this isn’t going to happen but we need to address the other elephant in the room.”

Mr Katter said it appeared the LNP politicians like Herbert MP Phillip Thompson, Dawson MP George Christensen, Capricornia MP Michelle Landry and Senator Matt Canavan had forgotten to lobby their own party on the issue.

“It seems they have been so busy trying to wedge Labor and the Greens into a corner on this that they forgot to lobby their own party at the state-level – the state Liberals have made it very clear they are against building any new coal-fired power stations in Queensland.”

Queensland Shadow Minister for Energy Michael Hart has previously denounced plans for a new coal-fired power station to be built in Queensland, and said the state LNP would not support any form of government investment into coal-fired power. [1]

Mr Katter has today called on the LNP to let the public know if this position had changed.

“Transparency, and not politicking, on this is very important because at present we don’t generate any of our own power in the North and are therefore beholden to the State Government to subside the astronomical costs with transporting power up from Gladstone,” he said.“That, coupled with the large-scale mining, industrial and manufacturing development we want to achieve in the North in the coming years, mean we desperately need our own plan up here for reliable and sustainable power.”

Mr Katter said the KAP believes combined with large-scale hydro-electricity generated through Hell’s Gates Dam, coal-fired power is the answer to Queensland’s energy future.

[1] “Collinsville coal-fired power station is backed by ‘big mining companies’, Queensland LNP says”, The Guardian, 24 July, 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/24/collinsville-coal-fired-power-station-is-backed-by-big-mining-companies-queensland-lnp-says