The Palaszczuk Budget does very little for the regional Queenslanders who generate the wealth her green pipe dreams rely on, writes Nick Cater.
Yet Annastacia Palaszczuk’s vision of turning Queensland into the green super state means that high voltage power lines from Townsville to Mt Isa have become a spending priority.
“This is nation building,” Ms Palaszczuk said in October 2020 on the day she committed $1.8 billion towards building the 1,100 km high voltage transmission line known as CopperString 2.0.
Sky News host James Macpherson says Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has taken a page from Daniel Andrews’ “playbook” and employed more than 100 more people to her own staff.
“Copper string will set North Queensland up to be an economic super powerhouse,” she told reporters in March as she raised the government’s contribution to $5 billion.
A journalist dared to ask why the cost to taxpayers had risen by $3.2 billion in just 29 months.
“It is a super grid, OK,” replied Palaszczuk somewhat testily.
“It is not a mini grid, it’s a super grid… there’s a green revolution that’s upon us and we’re in a really good position to take advantage of it.”
Treasurer Cameron Dick had money to burn in Tuesday’s Queensland Budget thanks to the government’s policy of squeezing the coal industry dry.
The combination of high global coal prices and the world’s highest royalty rate will return $16 billion to the state this year.
The credit for most of this windfall should be given to the hard-working folk in central and northern Queensland who mined 99 per cent of the state’s coking coal and 55 per cent of the thermal coal in 2022.
Annastacia Palaszczuk’s 2023 Budget clearly reflects the priorities of her inner-city voter base, but does very little for those those living in parts of Queensland that generate the wealth her green pipe dreams rely upon, writes Nick Cater. Picture: David Clark
It is an unfortunate fact of life that the regions generating wealth, which the government then taxes, seldom get to decide how the money is spent.
In Queensland that falls to the state parliament, which is located in a bubble in the centre of Brisbane a world away from the workers in high-vis gear around the bar in Bowen’s Larrikin Hotel.
In the unlikely event that the Premier was to consult them about infrastructure priorities, it is doubtful anyone would nominate an 1,100 km high-voltage transmission line to connect Mt Isa (population 19,200) to the grid.
The town has got along pretty well up to now with its own gas and diesel generation plant.
They would probably suggest that if Palaszczuk wants to build 1,100km of something useful she might start by connecting five of Queensland’s ten largest cities with a proper road between Gympie and Cairns.
The goat track known as the Bruce Highway is the most dangerous road in the country.
It has claimed the lives of at least 320 Australians in the past decade.
Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli says he wants to see “integrity back in government” and finish Annastacia Palaszczuk’s reign as Premier.
“Economy, integrity and services – Queensland is seeing they’re being let down badly by a government that has won 11 of the last 12 elections and been in power for most of the last three and a half decades,” Mr Crisafulli told Sky News host Paul Murray.
The improvements to the Pacific Highway in NSW in the last 10 years has reduced the death toll.
It means you can drive from Sydney to Tweed Heads legally at an average speed of 101km/h, according to Google Maps.
The average speed from Brisbane to Bowen will be less than 90km.
This burden adds to the cost of freight inflating the cost of, say, the Heritage Tomatoes trucked south in the southern winter from tropical farms.
It also adds to the amount of diesel emissions, just quietly.
Sadly, however, the million or so people who live north of Rockhampton will have to wait a little longer for the money that would bring regional transport into the 21st century.
The Palaszczuk government cut its miserable spending on transport and roads by a fifth in this week’s Budget – from $5.1 billion this year to $4.2 billion next.
Nationals Senator Matt Canavan says “so-called greenies” enacting green energy projects do not consider the environmental impact they will have on rural areas and will destroy them in the name of protection.
“They’ve calculated they want to put solar panels in an area around Collinsville in North Queensland, they would have a diameter of about 300 kilometres, so you could drive for three hours and all you’d see is solar panels,” Mr Canavan told Sky News contributor Steve Price.
“What about the environment, what does that do to a natural environment to put up a circle of 300 kilometres worth of mirrors everywhere? As I say these are so-called greenies that want to protect the environment yet they’re destroying it in the name of it, it is ironic but it’s also incredibly sad given the impact this is having on rural areas.”
Infrastructure spending on hospitals remained static after inflation at $1.6 billion as does the capital spending on schools.
Spending on renewable energy projects, or “investment”, as the government prefers to call it, increased 70 per cent to $5.4 billion.
It accounts for a third of the Queensland government’s infrastructure spending this year but is almost certainly a mere down payment on the tens or hundreds of billions that will need to be spent if the government’s target of 100 per cent renewable generation is to be met.
It may reflect the priorities in Brisbane’s latte belt, but hardly those in the places where people work hard for their money, battling bureaucracy and regulations that make their jobs even harder.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s claim that generating 82 per cent of the nation’s electricity by wind and solar by 2030 will somehow cut power bills is exposed as ridiculous by the amount of spending in this week’s Queensland Budget.
As the Premier told journalists in March, “if you’re building bigger transmission lines, it’s going to cost more money.”
It matters little whether the cost of capital is added to electricity bills or paid in taxes.
Top business leaders have warned electricity prices will take years to return to pre-COVID pandemic levels.
Experts warn clean energy projects are not progressing as coal is still generating about two-thirds of the country’s electricity.
They say Labor’s pledge to triple the amount of renewable energy by 2030 is at risk by the lack of green power and the failure to build replacement energy supplies, which may force the government to renege on its promise to slash $275 from household bills by 2025.
All Queenslanders will pay for it in the end.
Palaszczuk’s green folly highlights an additional price we are paying, the cost of misallocating capital on an industrial scale.
Politicians like to promise everything, but in the end even the bad ones have to choose between spending money on roads, hospitals, schools and green energy.
Ideological fervour concentrated in our capital cities is pushing renewable energy to the top of the spending priority list, squeezing out spending on the national interest.
Bowen’s renewable energy target has also curtailed rational discussion on other technologies that could help us reach our net-zero goal more cheaply and quickly.
Construction on CopperString 2.0 won’t start before 2025, pushing its likely completion into the next decade.
The cost of building transmission lines is escalating dramatically, in part because of the heavy demand for copper and steel.
The eventual cost is guesswork, but $15 billion is far from an unlikely figure.
Sky News Business Editor Ross Greenwood says coal remains vital in the steel-making process which is an “uncomfortable truth” for the Greens and the left side of politics who demonise the industry.
Mr Greenwood sat down with Coronado Global Resources CEO Douglas Thompson to discuss the future of the energy industry and the possibility of green steel.
Before the Queensland government strings the public along any further, it would do well to consider the Trudeau government’s strategy to deliver clean energy to remote communities and mining centres.
There the solution is micro small modular reactors, self-contained, mass-produced nuclear generating plants that are relatively easily transported and installed close to where the electricity is consumed.
Installing such a unit alongside the 90 MW generator that currently serves Mount Isa would save the bother of stringing any extra copper in the middle of the outback.
It would be many times cheaper, and the power supplied would be far more reliable than the intermittent energy transmitted over long distances on lines at risk from the extreme weather events we are told we must expect.
An LNP leader hoping to deny the Palaszczuk government a fourth term in next year’s election might consider joining the growing push to lift the moratorium on nuclear power and learn from the Canadians.
Expanding regional economies and redirecting billions of dollars from Palaszczuk’s pet projects to build a faster, safer network of regional roads might appeal to a leader like David Crisafulli, who was born and bred in Ingham in far north Queensland, a 16 hours’ drive from Brisbane on a good day.
Nick Cater is Senior Fellow at the Menzies Research Centre. He was in North Queensland this week to address the Bowen Chamber of Commerce.