Queensland election: Adani size ‘up to the market’ says Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk as election campaign begins
Annastacia Palaszczuk puts state on election footing, dismisses Adani concerns, and heads straight for Katter country.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has kicked off her election campaign and headed straight for Mount Isa, the state’s safest seat and held by crucial crossbencher Robbie Katter.
Mr Katter, leader of the Katter’s Australian Party and commander of three of the seven crossbench votes in the current Queensland parliament, holds the enormous north-west Queensland electorate of Traeger by 28.49 per cent.
In a break from tradition, Ms Palaszczuk has flown to the resources capital of Queensland, despite expectations she might go directly to must-win marginal coastal regional Labor seats in Townsville and Cairns.
Labor holds 48 of the parliament’s 93 electorates, a two-seat majority, with the LNP on 38. The Opposition needs a net gain of nine seats to win majority government. Eight of Labor’s seats are regional and are held on a margin of less than 4.5 per cent.
She is expected to centre the second day of her re-election push on mining – an issue she tried to avoid during her 2017 campaign, when Indian conglomerate Adani’s controversial Carmichael coal mine project dominated.
Ms Palaszczuk’s Labor government was hammered from both sides: anti-Adani environmental activists demanding the project be stopped, and pro-resources rural and regional communities – including Labor-aligned unions – demanding it go ahead to provide much-needed jobs.
Recently, the CFMEU slammed the government for forgetting its blue-collar roots, by stalling approvals of New Hope’s New Acland coal mine expansion, west of Brisbane. The union’s construction and mining divisions left Labor’s dominant Left faction, promising not to provide donations, manpower or other resources to the government for this campaign.
While both sides of politics have ruled out doing a deal with minor parties or independents to form government, Mr Katter has told The Australian he’s willing to help Labor or the LNP to form minority government – but his price is support for key north Queensland initiatives.
In an interview with The Australian, he said he’s willing to negotiate with both sides of politics in the event of a hung parliament, but the price of power is ambitious demands for regional Queensland, including a state-funded rail line to open up the burgeoning Galilee coal province.
He wants part of the $5bn Queensland Future Fund – established by former Treasurer Jackie Trad to pay down debt – quarantined to build infrastructure in north Queensland and run by an independent corporation. And he wants the “weak” four per cent ethanol mandate – negotiated by the minor party with Ms Palaszczuk’s first-term minority government in 2017 – beefed up to an enforced 10 per cent.
Mr Katter will also call for the building of more dams, including the Hells Gate dam north of Charters Towers, and the Hughenden Irrigation project.
Adani size ‘up to the market’
Ms Palaszczuk’s Labor government rushed to sign a royalties deal with Indian mining conglomerate Adani, which is building a large thermal coal mine in the Galilee Basin, which Labor sources said was to remove the “barnacles” before the election campaign, which kicked off today.
During the 2017 election campaign, Ms Palaszczuk’s travels were marred by anti-Adani protesters, and Labor’s federal campaign last year was also dogged by the issue of the party’s equivocal support for coal mining.
Asked whether she hoped the Galilee Basin would fulfil its promise as one of the world’s largest coal provinces, Ms Palaszczuk said: “That’s up to the market, but let me say very clearly, we support the resources industry, I’ve made that absolutely clear.
“We back jobs, whether they be in coal, whether they be in copper, whether they be in bauxite, whether they be in renewables. Queenslanders are employed in a whole range of fields … in other parts of the world, people are not working. Mining is shut down, agriculture is shut down, schools are just going back in some countries (due to COVID-19),” she said.
After federal Labor’s drubbing at the 2019 federal election, particularly in Queensland, Ms Palaszczuk announced she was unhappy with her government’s progress in progressing Adani’s approvals, and ordered they be fast-tracked.
Asked if her government was re-elected, would she give the other Galilee Basin proponents the confidence their approvals would go through speedily, Ms Palaszczuk demurred.
“The approvals have to go through the normal processes,” she said.
‘Let me finish the job’: Palaszczuk
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has attacked the LNP’s plan to put Labor last in seats across the state as a “recipe for chaos,” as she appealed to voters to let her finish the job of economic recovery.
Ms Palaszczuk — who will pin her re-election hopes on her management of the COVID-19 crisis — said she had to make the “hard decisions, tough decisions” during the pandemic, the most contentious of which has been to keep the state’s borders largely closed — visited the state’s Governor to officially kick off the October 31 election campaign.
Within hours of putting the state on an election footing, Ms Palaszczuk dodged questions about whether she’d stay on as Labor leader if she failed to secure a majority after the October 31 election, kicking off her campaign with a press conference at the Port of Brisbane, in the safe Labor electorate of Lytton (12.1 per cent).
The Premier met workers in high-vis and told voters the Queensland economy was still functioning due to the government’s strong health response to the COVID-19 crisis.
The state recorded zero new cases and currently has seven active patients.
“I’m asking Queenslanders to allow me to get on with the job of economic recovery,” she said.
Treasurer Cameron Dick said the election would be about “who will keep Queenslanders safe”.
In response to the LNP’s high-risk tactic, announced yesterday, to put Labor last on how-to-vote cards across the state, Ms Palaszczuk said it was a “recipe for disaster”.
“I think Queenslanders want stability,” she said.
“We learn that during the last campaign, they want stability, they don’t want chaos, and what the Opposition is putting together is a recipe for chaos.”
She played down a YouGov poll, published in The Courier-Mail, suggesting Labor was in a commanding position to win the election, insisting there’s “only one poll that counts”.
But she was less forthcoming when asked whether she would stand down as Labor leader if she failed to reach a majority government.
“I’m asking Queenslanders for a majority, a majority brings about stability,” she said.
“I’m asking for a majority, I’m asking for a majority.”
Yesterday, both Ms Palaszczuk and Ms Frecklington insisted they would not do a deal with a minor party or independent to form government in the event of a hung parliament.
Ms Palaszczuk broke a similar promise in 2015, when she formed minority government with Independent Peter Wellington after her unexpected defeat of Campbell Newman.
On Monday, Ms Palaszczuk said minority governments did not work. Today, she denied her first government — a minority — was a failure.
“No,” she said.
Labor will put One Nation last
Ms Palaszczuk said Queenslanders would judge her on, “our record, they will judge us on how we’ve handled COVID and keeping them safe, and they’ll judge us on our economic recovery plan”.
“I’m yet to see any plan from the Opposition at all.”
Ms Palaszczuk said Labor would put One Nation last on every ballot paper, but she could not say whether the LNP would be placed second-last in every seat across the state.
“We’ve always said One Nation last,” she said.
“(Regarding the LNP), that’s individual seats, but always have One Nation last.”
She said LNP voters would be upset about Ms Frecklington putting the Greens ahead of Labor.
“I think there’ll be a lot of LNP supporters very disappointed with what Deb Frecklington is putting out there at the moment,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
Election firsts
Both Ms Palaszczuk and LNP leader Deb Frecklington will spend the next 3.5 weeks crisscrossing the state to convince voters to back them.
This is the first time Queensland has had a fixed election date and a fixed four-year term to follow. It’s also the first time both major parties have been led by women at an election campaign.
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