London calling as resources minister snubs Queensland Resources Council pile-on

Annastacia Palaszczuk has forbidden her cabinet from attending a resources forum in Brisbane with Scott Stewart instead off to ‘Europe’s leading mining investment event’.

Queensland Resources Minister Scott Stewart was a late scratching for the Queensland Resources Council’s long-publicised mining sector forum. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

G’day readers, and welcome to another edition of Feeding the Chooks, your weekly peek behind the scenes of Queensland politics and business.

MINING FOR MATES

Queensland Resources Minister Scott Stewart was a late scratching for the Queensland Resources Council’s long-publicised mining sector pile-on on the Palaszczuk government, aka its annual lunch and conference event in Brisbane this week.

Let’s face it, it would have been awkward had Stewart gone.

Erstwhile federal Liberal MP and now QRC chief executive Ian Macfarlane had for weeks been foreshadowing the bucketing he was planning on giving the government over its surprise coal royalty hike in this year’s budget.

And Macfarlane wasn’t backwards in coming forwards on Wednesday in lashing Stewart, Stewart’s boss Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, and Treasurer Cameron Dick, using the event to launch a $40m, two-year advertising campaign against the government and its super-profits tax.

Queensland Resources Council's chief executive Ian Macfarlane at the QRC annual forum and lunch at the Brisbane Convention Centre. Picture: Zak Simmonds

Macfarlane alleged the “aggressive” tax regime seriously damages Queensland’s reputation as a “safe place to invest”, and quoted forecasters who estimated that coal miners would pay $12.4bn in royalties to the state government this financial year. Of that, $4.5bn is due to the new tax tiers.

Treasury analysis, however, shows miners only pay the higher tax rate when the coal price soars above $175/tonne, a threshold thermal coal has only exceeded once in the past 24 years.

Palaszczuk admitted she was furious about Macfarlane’s campaign, refused to accept the QRC’s invitation to attend, and ordered her ministers – including Stewart – boycott the industry forum.

“I was invited to today’s lunch,” Palaszczuk said on Wednesday.

“I have made it very clear that my ministers will not be attending this lunch because of the $40m campaign. That $40m – if companies are making $40m to go into a campaign – that money can be very well spent in the lead-up to Christmas helping Queenslanders.”

(Chooks will take a moment to point out that the government spent $1.04m, not including GST, on an one-month advertising campaign spruiking that same tax increase that now has the QRC so worked up. As LNP integrity spokeswoman Fiona Simpson mused, “surely this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black?”)

LONDON CALLING

But as it turns out, Palaszczuk’s not ordering Stewart to boycott every mining industry meeting.

In fact, she’s given him rare special leave from parliament next week to fly to London of all places to attend the prestigious Mines and Money conference, sold as “Europe’s leading mining investment event”.

The top-billed speaker is Lance Corporal Richard Jones, the winner of Britain’s Got Talent in 2016 for his skills as a magician and mentalist, but possibly more relevantly, there’ll be representatives of more than 150 mining companies from 75 countries.

“We want investors across the globe to know the huge opportunities in our Queensland resources sector, particularly in the North West Minerals Province, which will supply the critical minerals the world needs to decarbonise,” Stewart said of his trip with chief geologist Tony Knight and Resources Department Director-General Mark Cridland.

Queensland Mines Minister Scott Stewart with a gold bar poured at Minjar Gold's Pajingo mine, south of Charters Towers. Picture: Trudy Brown

Stewart reckons jetting to Europe is the “perfect opportunity to put Queensland’s minerals on the global stage ahead of the World Mining Congress” next year, which is being held in Brisbane for the first time.

The minister was in Sydney briefly earlier this month for the Mines and Money conference there (where he gave a speech and bumped into a delegation of politicians from Mongolia), and on Friday attended The Australian’s Critical Minerals Summit also in the NSW capital.

And in late breaking news for the bruised Queensland coalmining sector, guess who will be filling in as resources minister when Stewart is in the UK?

None other than Treasurer Cameron Dick, the man responsible for the new royalties tax.

IT’S A GAS

Staying in the resources sector, the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association’s Queensland branch’s annual festive bash was in Brisbane on Thursday night.

And while Scott Stewart was in attendance, the chatter was all about who wasn’t there.

Chooks has learnt that APPEA Queensland director Matthew Paull – who has been with the gas industry lobby group for 13 years – abruptly resigned this week.

Matthew Paull was the APPEA Queensland director.

Senior APPEA members were informed of Paull’s sudden departure in an emailed announcement on Tuesday from relatively new APPEA national chief executive Samantha McCulloch, who said Joshua O’Rourke would be acting in Paull’s role.

One sentence – that O’Rourke “will attend any pre-booked meetings over coming weeks” in Paull’s place – sparked speculation the resignation hadn’t been in the works for long.

Ahead of the Thursday Christmas drinks, some members received another email reminding them of the event and not-so-subtly pointing to Tuesday’s announcement about Paull’s exit.

But there was no official mention of Paull or recognition of his service over cocktails and canapes at the APPEA event.

POTS AND KETTLES

Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan’s had a terrible week. First, an independent inquiry found there was a pervasive culture of “fear and secrecy” in the Queensland Police Service – from the top down – that allowed racism, sexism and misogyny to flourish.

Then on Thursday, as Ryan and under-fire police commissioner Katarina Carroll addressed the media at a police recruit induction event, he put his foot in it.

Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan and police commissioner Katarina Carroll. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Richard Gosling

Ryan gushed that it was a “really exciting day” for 72 new recruits who were graduating as constables, giving them an opportunity to help the state’s police on its journey to reform. Ryan encouraged them to “set the tone” in the workplace.

Continuing his prepared remarks, he took exception to LNP Opposition Leader David Crisafulli’s criticism of the government over frontline police numbers.

“The numbers don’t lie but David Crisafulli does,” Ryan told reporters.

“In fact, maybe he should change his name to David Crisa-full-of-it, because he just makes it up every single day.”

LNP multicultural spokesman John-Paul Langbroek swiftly issued a press release, accusing Ryan of making “fun of the ethnicity of a person’s name”.

“It was an offensive set play during a public media conference at a time leadership is needed to drive cultural change,” Langbroek said.

Cartoon and invitation for the Nationals’ annual seafood barbecue at Parliament House in Canberra.

Langbroek’s outrage prompted one of Chooks’ correspondents to remember an unedifying exchange in parliament in 2013, during LNP Premier Campbell Newman’s brief reign.

As The Courier-Mail reported at the time, then-Treasurer Tim Nicholls responded to a question in parliament from then-Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk by describing it as “his first time with the Leader of the Opposition and I am excited by it”.

Then-Education Minister Langbroek joined in: “It won’t be a one-night stand”.

Gross.

Chooks takes this opportunity to encourage pollies of all stripes do better.

SPOTTED

Down in Canberra, the Nats held their annual seafood BBQ lunch, back after a long absence due to the pandemic.

On the menu was king prawns, Moreton Bay bugs, scallops, barramundi and crocodile, and Chooks hears the fish was particularly delicious.

Chooks stumbled upon the invitation, featuring Nationals senators in cartoon form fishing for (with?) their policy areas of choice, including Matt Canavan and coal, Susan McDonald and ‘fake meat’, and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and the Voice to Parliament, and Bridget McKenzie and guns.