‘They lied black and blue’: Miles unworthy to lead Labor again

Critics have rightly focused on the staggering cost overruns of Labor’s absurdly overblown Pioneer-Burdekin hydro project, but there is a deeper scandal, writes Des Houghton.

Former premier Steven Miles and Mick de Brenni. Picture: Liam Kidston

Critics have rightly focused on the staggering cost overruns of Labor’s absurdly overblown Pioneer-Burdekin hydro project. But I think there is a deeper scandal requiring the antiseptic of public disclosure.

Ousted premier Steven Miles and his energy minister Mick de Brenni knew about the blowouts before the election and stayed silent.

That was a betrayal of public trust. We need full disclosure now because it is a scandal that goes to the heart of ministerial integrity.

Miles and de Brenni have fired an Exocet missile through Labor’s credibility. Regrettably for the party, the pair still appear tone deaf to the public outrage, offering little explanation. Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie described the scandal as a “$36bn hydro hoax”.

“They lied black and blue to Queenslanders right before an election and hid the true costs from taxpayers in a cost-of-living crisis,” Bleijie said.

He said Labor’s signature project would never have gotten out of the starting gates.

There are federal implications. Labor’s actions have just handed Peter Dutton another weapon in his battle to dislodge Anthony Albanese from the Lodge.

And it has provided fresh meat for
a group of federal members of parliament who are about to publish
a study showing subsidised renewables are far more expensive than nuclear power.

There were more than 40 alternative large-scale pumped hydro sites considered before the government selected Pioneer-Burdekin and Borumba. Picture: Queensland Hydro Study

Meanwhile, I get the sense the Greens are still grasping at clouds not quite sure what to make of it all. The hydro hoax has placed them in an invidious position. I expect them to glue themselves to the Bruce Highway any day now.

Earlier this year de Brenni was talking up pumped hydro while declining to talk costs.

“We know Queensland’s future industry and economy … are dependent on Queensland decarbonising its energy system _ only possible with the Borumba and Pioneer-Burdekin projects,” he said in a statement.

“These projects lock in the pathway for an additional 145,000 clean economy jobs by 2050 and the $430bn uplift in investment and trade opportunities – mostly in regional Queensland.”

We now know that is a dream.

Earlier this year Miles told the Parliament the “current estimate” for Pioneer-Burdekin was $12bn, $24bn shy of the real figure.

Miles was a caretaker premier at best. He is now dead man walking, and the best thing he could possibly do for the Labor Party is to make a graceful exit from Parliament.

The controversy makes Miles and de Brenni appear arrogant and shifty and therefore unsuitable for future leadership roles in my opinion.

Who else knew? No doubt Cameron Dick, the former Treasurer. If he did not, he was not doing his
job. Dick, too, remains ensnared in the scandal.

In an interview in The Courier-Mail on the day of the election, Miles urged voters to trust him adding: “You know me.”

Well we do now.

Trust is like a crystal vase. Once toppled from the mantelpiece it’s hard to put the broken pieces back together.

De Brenni’s future is also under a cloud. In Parliament, he baulked at straight questions on how much land would have to be resumed and what it cost. And he used the good old commercial-in-confidence trick when declining to say how much money had already been spent on resumptions and buyouts.

The alleged cheap power from the Pioneer-Burdekin plant and its little brother at Borumba, inland from the Sunshine Coast, were supposed to herald a golden age of state infrastructure projects and provide cheap domestic power.

The scrapping of the Pioneer-Burdekin project 75km west of Mackay means we will have to find energy elsewhere.

Pioneer-Burdekin was politically important for Labor because pumped hydro was at the cornerstone of its pledge to meet NetZero by 2050 while creating thousands of clean economy jobs as we transitioned to renewables.

The low-carbon policy was a full-frontal attack on coal with successive Labor governments doing everything they could in the last decade to block new mines.

But coal wasn’t going anywhere.

Coal-fired power accounts for 74 per cent of the electricity generated in Queensland, according to the latest figures I could find that were tabled in Parliament in late 2023. That report shows gas made up just 8 per cent, large solar 9 per cent, wind 3.7 per cent, hydro 1.2 per cent and bioenergy 2.5 per cent.

The Pioneer-Burdekin report hidden by Labor and made public this week by the Premier David Crisafulli shows unequivocally that Pioneer-Burdekin was not financially viable.

The hubris around Labor’s plans for the largest pumped hydro in the world was, as it turned out, embarrassing overkill.

And it was also environmentally reckless.

Earlier this year I could not get straight answers on how much koala habitat would be destroyed by the new transmission lines needed to carry the power generated by hydro.

Pioneer-Burdekin was also a threat to the endangered platypus but there was no platypus management plan that I could see.