Queensland election: You’ll have to do better, Robbie Katter tells wooing ALP

Queensland crossbencher Robbie Katter says Labor’s promise to back one of his pet projects, the $1.7bn CopperString power transmission line, is not enough to win his support.

Annastacia Palaszczuk visits the Glencore Copper Smelter in Mount Isa on Wednesday. Picture: Dan Peled

Crucial regional Queensland crossbencher Robbie Katter says Labor’s promise to back one of his pet projects, the $1.7bn CopperString power transmission line, is not enough to win his support in the event of a hung parliament.

Premier Annastacia Palas­zczuk visited Glencore’s Mount Isa copper smelter in Mr Katter’s electorate of Traeger (KAP, 28.49 per cent) on Wednesday, confirming the government had signed an agreement with CopperString to underwrite costs including its environmental impact study.

Ms Palaszczuk said the project — a proposed 1100km high-voltage transmission line that would link new and existing mines in the northwest minerals province with the national electricity grid in Townsville, delivering cheaper power — was “visionary and ­nation-building”.

GRAPHIC: Queensland tower of power

She denied the government’s backing was aimed at “buttering up” Mr Katter, whose three crossbench votes would be critical if the October 31 election delivered a hung parliament.

“Definitely not, this has been something my government has championed every single step of the way,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

Mr Katter praised the state and federal governments for finally coming to the table on CopperString, but he said it “fell well short” of what he would demand to swing his support behind Labor to form minority government.

“There’s no way this is enough for (minority) support or otherwise — it falls well short,” he said.

“The government could have stepped in and underwritten this project any time over last 10 years.”

He said he had warned Labor “explicitly” in the weeks before the election that he would criticise the government in north Queensland — where they are desperate to hold several marginal seats — if it did not endorse CopperString, or fund maintenance at Glencore’s copper smelter.

Ms Palaszczuk has done both.

Deb Frecklington with Watkins Steel MD Des Watkins. Picture: Sarah Marshall

Mr Katter wants a state-owned Galilee Basin rail line, a dedicated infrastructure fund for north Queensland, more dams, and a 10 per cent ethanol mandate in exchange for the Katter’s Australian Party support in the event of a hung parliament.

As Ms Palaszczuk flew to Townsville on Wednesday afternoon, LNP leader Deb Frecklington left the state’s southeast for Cairns, where she is expected to announce a defence manufacturing partnership on Thursday.

Earlier in Brisbane, Ms Frecklington said the LNP would reduce electricity costs for manufacturers through a $493m community ­service obligation, removing requirements for government-owned electricity corporations to charge manufacturing businesses a rate of return on electricity ­provided through the distribution networks.

“This is also about growing the manufacturing industry by 20,000 jobs,” she said.

Mr Katter, however, criticised Ms Frecklington and the LNP’s decision to preference the Greens ahead of Labor on how-to-vote cards across the state, predicting it would be the LNP’s “death knell” in rural and regional Queensland.

“In the interest of playing politics and boosting their chances of taking office in the tower of power on George Street, the LNP has betrayed everyone outside southeast Queensland,” he said.

The LNP, which holds 38 of the parliament’s 93 electorates compared with the government’s 48, is targeting Labor’s seven marginal seats in regional Queensland as part of the nine seats it needs to win majority government.

Three Labor-held seats in Townsville are among the most vulnerable: Townsville is the state’s most marginal (0.38 per cent), Mundingburra is on a margin of 1.13 per cent, and Thuringowa is on 4.15 per cent.