Labor shifts on Adani as coal hard facts dawn

Queensland Labor has dramatically shifted ground on coalmining ahead of next week’s anticipated sign-off for the Adani project.

Former US vice president Al Gore and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in Brisbane yesterday. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Queensland’s Labor government has dramatically shifted ground on coalmining ahead of next week’s anticipated sign-off for the litmus Adani project, with Treasurer and Deputy Premier Jackie Trad saying the state is open for business to new coal projects.

Applying the finishing touches yesterday to her second state budget, which was thrown into disarray by Labor’s shock drubbing in last month’s federal election under Bill Shorten, Ms Trad was anticipating a tax take of $5 billion in mining royalties, the lion’s share from coal exports.

In an interview with The Weekend Australian, the prominent Adani sceptic and factional leader of Labor’s parliamentary Left in Queensland defended the state’s delay in approving Adani’s controversial $2bn Carmichael coalmine in central Queensland’s Galilee Basin.

Asked if Queensland was open to business for new coalmines, Ms Trad said the state had approved the $1bn Olive Downs coalmine in the Bowen Basin just last month.

“That’s a new metallurgical coalmine, so we have been in the business of exporting our commodities to a rapidly growing Asia region for a number of decades now, and this is going to continue,” Ms Trad said.

Her comments came as former US vice-president and climate warrior Al Gore, who warned in 2017 that there was a choice ­between the Adani mine and the Great Barrier Reef, urged Australian governments to swap “dinosaur projects of the past” for renewables.

Labor’s disastrous result in Queensland at the May 18 federal election has sent shockwaves through the state government, the next in line to face voters, in October next year. Facing criticism that Labor’s dithering over Adani had slashed federal Labor’s primary vote in Queensland to 26.68 per cent, the lowest of any mainland state, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk declared on May 22 that she was “fed up” with the delays and ordered the fast-tracking of environmental approvals.

The Queensland Environment Department has since ­approved Adani’s plan for managing the endangered black-throated finch around the Carmichael mine site. It will make a decision on Thursday on the company’s groundwater strategy, the final hurdle before construction can start.

Ms Trad’s combative tone on Adani has also changed, starting when she conceded in a Facebook post this week that “tearing ourselves apart over one mine” would achieve nothing.

Ms Trad, who in 2017 led an ­internal government revolt against a royalties holiday deal struck by Ms Palaszczuk with the Indian conglomerate, yesterday defended the time taken to ­approve the project under the state’s “robust” environmental laws. “The reason why it has taken the time it has taken is the Galilee Basin is a brand-new basin,” the Treasurer said.

“The Surat, the Bowen ­basins, both of these basins have been opened for many decades.

“The hydrology, the biodiver­sity, the environmental features, the water flows, all of that stuff is known. It’s been mapped, it’s been analysed, it’s been included in ­(environmental impact statements) and mine operation plans for quite a number of years now.

“Opening up a new basin is a very different business, and particularly many decades after the last one is opened, because our ­environmental laws are different, they are better, and Australians and Queenslanders deserve to know we’re striking the right ­balance.”

Labor continues to grapple with the politics of coal, but mining royalties will deliver a much-­needed boost to the bottom line in Tuesday’s Queensland budget after Ms Trad revealed that GST revenue was down $800 million. She also accused the re-elected Morrison government of owing $840m in disability funding.

On top of this, the state will miss out on a massive injection of funding for infrastructure that would have flowed had Mr Shorten won the federal election. This included $2.2bn towards the $5.4bn Cross River Rail project in Brisbane, the cost of which will now be carried entirely by the state unless the Prime Minister agrees to chip in.

Ms Trad yesterday confirmed the state was contending with a $1.32bn shortfall in stamp duty over four years. But Queensland’s nation-leading debt is set to climb above the $83.5bn forecast for 2021-22 in her first budget last year in order to fund infrastructure construction.

Addressing Queensland’s ballooning bureaucracy, Ms Trad said the $1.5bn outlaid on government contractors on top of the public sector wage bill was a concern.

She said she had recently spoken to Reserve Bank deputy governor Guy Debelle about the economic risk of climate change.

“I don’t think we can ignore the warnings from the Reserve Bank of Australia in terms of how we need to start preparing our balance sheets for (the) continuing trend around natural disasters and climate change,” Ms Trad said.

“This is something we have to grapple with environmentally, as well as economically, and ­industrially.”

At a business and climate change event in Brisbane yesterday, Ms Palaszczuk shared a stage with Mr Gore and declared Queensland would be a “resources state for as far into the future as any of us can see”.

While she spruiked the state’s commitment to renewables, a ­burgeoning hydrogen industry, bauxite, and even metallurgical coal, Ms Palaszczuk did not make any mention of thermal coal or Adani.

Mr Gore praised Ms Palaszczuk for her “really quite impressive” leadership to transition Queensland towards renewables, while acknowledging there was still “a lot of coal” in the state.

He said the nation had a choice to make.

“Will you educate the engineers that you need?” Mr Gore said. “Will you build the infrastructure that’s necessary? Will you avoid the opportunity cost of still going after dinosaur projects of the past — that’s all I’m going to say.”