Opinion: Labor’s hydrogen folly crashes and burns

There was a hydrogen-fuelled disaster in Queensland recently, but the only casualty was what was left of the credibility of the former Labor government, writes Mike O’Connor.

Then premier Annastacia Palaszczuk with Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest in 2021

It is almost 90 years since the German airship Hindenberg burst into flames while landing in the US, the hydrogen-fuelled flames causing a tragic loss of life.

There was another hydrogen-fuelled disaster in Queensland recently. Happily there was no loss of life, with the only casualty being what was left of the credibility of the former Labor government, the metaphoric flames consuming it fed by tens of millions of Queensland taxpayers’ dollars.

Hark back four years as then premier Annastacia Palaszczuk stood beside a beaming Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest to announce plans to build a $12.5bn green hydrogen plant in Gladstone.

If hyberbole was as flammable as hydrogen, then the official party would have spontaneously combusted, creating a giant fireball that would have been visible in Brisbane.

This project, crowed the Premier, was as significant as the granting of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games to Brisbane.

You may well struggle to see the nexus between the Games and a hydrogen plant but never mind for the premier and minister for the Olympics had seen a vision splendid, her place in the state’s history as an energy visionary assured.

Queensland treasurer Cameron Dick, his grin only out-dazzled by the fluorescent glow projected by Twiggy’s pearly whites, was not to be outdone in the quest to see who could make the most ridiculous statement of the day.

This announcement, he declared, heralded the “sunrise on a new industry for Queensland” saying the facility was expected to double the world’s green hydrogen capacity.

“We will almost triple it right here in this state … we can be that energy superpower for the world,” Mr Dick said.

Twiggy went one better, invoking an apocalyptic prediction of life without green hydrogen.

“We will not allow the world to keep on cooking,” he declared.

How the sense of civic pride beating in the collective breast of the good people of Gladstone must have swelled to hear Twiggy reveal that had spent 15 months travelling to 62 countries around the world in a quest to find the best location to build the facility before settling on their fair city.

Former Labor premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her successor Steven Miles

Is it possible that he spent 15 months circling the globe and visiting 62 countries before he found a government that was sufficiently naive and simple-minded to fall for the spin?

No way, because as he revealed, he had settled on the Sunshine State as “Queensland has the beautiful combination of wind and solar and you have a hard-working, educated people and a great government steering into a green hydrogen future”.

Makes you proud to be a Queenslander, doesn’t it.

Four years on and the corporations tapped to be partake in the green dream gazed into the future and saw nothing but red ink.

In November the Kansai Electric Power Company pulled out of the consortium and in March the Iwatani Corporation quietly withdrew from the project and without so much as a “sayonara” closed its Queensland offices and beat a hasty retreat back to Japan while the Crisafulli government has refused to support it.

The project is now dead.

The wonder of politics in that you never own your disasters, no matter how dim witted, poorly informed and researched and politically driven they might be.

Thus it was that last week the former premier blithely batted away the Gladstone debacle by saying that it imploded because green hydrogen had been placed in the too-hard basket.

“Hydrogen is just too hard at the moment and until those prices come down, I don’t think we’ll see those projects taking off the ground,” she said.

Who put it in the aforesaid basket? All the people living in 62 countries around the world who were too smart to get involved in the first place.

Meanwhile federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen, locked in a broom cupboard until after the election due to his ability to cost the Labor Party votes every time he opens his mouth, has resumed his crusade to destroy the economy.

No one has told him about the too- hard basket and he recently announced plans to provide $8bn in funding over 10 years for the hydrogen industry including up to $814m in production incentives for a green hydrogen venture in Western Australia.

This, the minister said, would help Australia become – wait for it! – a renewable energy superpower.

Sound familiar?

They say there’s one born every minute. We seem to have more than our fair share.