Federal Labor wedges Palaszczuk on Galilee loan

The federal ALP has declared no taxpayer funds should go to any Galilee Basin rail line.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Nigel Hallett

The federal ALP has declared no taxpayer funds should go to any Galilee Basin rail line, ramping up pressure on the Queensland Labor government to veto a federal loan to rail giant Aurizon.

Queensland Premier Anna­stacia Palaszczuk’s government is refusing to say whether it would facilitate or veto a federal Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility loan to Aurizon to build a rail line linking proposed Galilee Basin coalmines to the Abbot Point port.

However the opposition spokesman for northern Australia, Jason Clare, has come out strongly on the Aurizon project, which anti-coal activists say would indirectly help Indian conglomerate Adani’s controversial coalmine in the basin.

Asked whether federal Labor thought the NAIF should lend to Aurizon, Mr Clare said: “Labor’s position on the construction of this rail line is unchanged regardless of who is building it. The project should stand on its own without being propped up by taxpayers’ money.”

Federal Labor’s position wedges the Queensland ALP government, which exercised its veto power to block a NAIF loan to Adani to build a similar common-user Galilee Basin rail line to link the mine and the port.

During her re-election campaign, Ms Palaszczuk announced the veto, a reversal of her government’s written commitment to facilitate a mooted NAIF loan to Adani.

During the campaign, Queensland Labor responded to a GetUp! survey, confirming it also would “veto any NAIF loan that helps enable Adani’s mine, power plant, and/or port”.

NAIF was established by the Abbott government in 2015 to fund infrastructure projects in northern Australia, but has not paid out any money.

The Aurizon issue is a political problem for Queensland Labor, as protesters who advocated an Adani veto now focus on pressuring the Palaszczuk government about the Aurizon project for its potential to assist Adani.

Deputy Premier and Treasurer Jackie Trad said the Queensland government had yet to receive “any confirmation from the NAIF that there is an active application for the Aurizon rail line”.

This week, The Australian reported that both NAIF and Aurizon had confirmed there was an active application from the former state-owned rail freight company. At the time, a NAIF spokesman said the body would “clarify” that position with the government.

Confusion over the status of the loan was raised at a Senate economics references committee hearing in Cairns yesterday into the governance and operation of NAIF. The committee was told Ms Trad had written to the NAIF seeking to clarify the status of Aurizon’s application after she had been briefed in a NAIF “pipeline report” on January 25 that it was “inactive”.

The Minister for Northern Australia, Queensland Nationals Senator Matt Canavan, challenged Queensland to state a position on Aurizon swiftly.

“They need to provide a firm commitment given their flip-flopping in the past,” Senator Canavan said. “Thousands of jobs are hanging in the balance.”