Queensland election 2017: Adani megamine veto threat
THOUSANDS of jobs have been put at risk after Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk revealed a conflict-of-interest bungle involving her partner and the Adani coalmine.
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THOUSANDS of jobs have been put at risk after Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk revealed a conflict-of-interest bungle involving her partner and the Adani coalmine.
Ms Palaszczuk yesterday moved to veto the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility loan to Adani for the construction of a railway line critical to its Carmichael coalmine as her partner Shaun Drabsch had worked on the NAIF application in his role with firm PwC.
His involvement has created a conflict of interest for the Premier dating back to May last year.
The decision will mean the loan cannot be granted to Adani for the railway line the miner requires to carry its coal to Abbot Point.
It is not the death knell for the project, but will make it harder for Adani to secure the finance needed to build the mine.
In a major blow to Ms Palaszczuk’s re-election campaign, the Premier revealed she was only made aware of Mr Drabsch’s involvement on Tuesday when her chief of staff flew to Cairns – where she had been campaigning – to tell her of the issue.
She went public with the information yesterday, claiming the LNP had been planning to smear her with the revelations at some stage during the campaign.
Ms Palaszczuk needs the agreement of LNP leader Tim Nicholls to veto the loan.
But Mr Nicholls slammed her move to kill off the NAIF loan as a stunt that could cripple the mine and cost more than 5000 jobs on the $16 billion project.
“Thousands of Queenslanders’ jobs depend on the Premier and she’s failed them,” he said.
“If, as the Premier claims, all necessary conflict of interest measures are correct and above board, why has she put thousands of jobs at risk with this extraordinary backflip.
“Given that NAIF loans are an independent federal process and state governments have a constitutional role to pass through the loan, what’s the problem?
“The Premier should honour her word and pass through the Adani loan if the independent NAIF makes such a decision.”
Mr Nicholls and several federal LNP figures contacted by The Courier-Mail rejected the Premier’s claim of a looming smear campaign.
“I know nothing of the work of her partner. I have met him at a number of functions, he seems like a nice bloke and deserves to earn a living just like all Queenslanders,’’ he said.
Ms Palaszczuk said she was moving to veto the NAIF loan to remove any conflict of interest.
“PwC acted for Adani on their application to the Federal Government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility,” she said.
“Shaun assisted PwC’s work, as a member of its national Infrastructure Advisory team only at a Federal level and this was after the mining leases were approved.
“I propose to write to the Prime Minister to notify him that my Government will exercise its ‘veto’ to not support the NAIF loan and to remove doubt about any perception of conflict.”
Federal Northern Australia Minister Senator Matt Canavan described the move as “crazy”.
“The last time I heard from the Queensland Government they supported the Carmichael mine and wouldn’t stand in the way,” he said.
Adani previously said the loan was not critical to its project, but changed its tune in May.
Originally published as Queensland election 2017: Adani megamine veto threat
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