Qld premier defends coal royalties

Queensland Premier Steven Miles has defended his government’s controversial coal royalty regime saying it was allowing the state to roll out big ticket infrastructure projects.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles at the Future Queensland Resources forum on July 12, 2024. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail

Queensland Premier Steven Miles has defended his government’s controversial coal royalty regime saying it has not deterred new resources projects and was allowing the state to roll out big ticket infrastructure projects.

Mr Miles told the Future Queensland Resources forum in Brisbane on Friday that there had been continued growth in exploration, investment and jobs growth despite the rise in’

royalties to the highest in the world.

The state government raked in $15.3bn coal royalties windfall – three times what the government had expected – in 2022/23. In 2023/24 it is expected to be least $9.2bn in revenue according to the state government’s mid-year budget update.

“We took advice from Queensland Treasury on all of the likely implications as well as the sheer volume of (commodity) profits that were being made during those peak prices and the reduced share therefore Queenslanders were receiving for them,” Mr Miles told the forum sponsored by New Corp’s The Courier-Mail.

Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick hiked coal royalty rates in his 2022 budget following a decade-long freeze and after promising no increased taxes during the 2020 election campaign.

“New South Wales and Victoria are cutting back their infrastructure programs while still experiencing population growth,” Mr Miles said.

“A big part of the reason we aren’t in Queensland is that we have the revenue from our resources and that’s higher than it would have otherwise been because of that decision (to increased royalties). We can continue to invest as infrastructure costs have gone up.”

Mr Miles also deflected criticism there had been a lack of consultation on the decision saying “there are necessarily times where you need to be able to announce a thing before it can be widely discussed and I suspect that was the thinking behind this particular one.”

Bravus executive director Samir Vora at the Future Resources Summit in Brisbane.

Mr Miles said the impact of the royalties hike had been pretty much in line with Treasury forecasts. “What we’ve seen in the intervening period is continued growth in investment, continued growth in jobs, continued interest in exploration,” said Mr Miles. “Queensland is a good place to be mining things and we expect investment to continue.”

However, Bowen Coking Coal executive chairman Nick Jorss told the forum that sky-high royalties were having a damaging impact on investment and profit across the sector.

Mr Jorss said that more than 60 per cent of his company’s operating profit margin now ended up in government coffers. “We’ve accrued or paid nearly $100 million dollars in royalties to the state,” said Mr Jorss. “Investors have put in $400 million and we give the first $100 million to the State before we make a profit”

Bravus executive director Samir Vora said the royalty regime was not the only issues impacting the sector and he criticised the time taken to approve his company’s giant Carmichael coal mine in Queensland. “It was quite painful because it took nine long years from the day we acquired the mine to get the approval to construct,” said Mr Vora, who heads the company formerly known as Adani.

“Frankly speaking, we underestimated the whole process when we did the acquisition. The activism grew significantly and we underestimated how well-funded they were, how good they are in spreading lies and how good they are in distorting facts.

“So it became quite difficult for us as the activism grew and the support started decreasing. The government started withdrawing the support for the project.”