Queensland taxpayers fund $1.5m coal advertising campaign

The marketing blitz will promote Queensland’s coal industry and sell the Palaszczuk government’s decision to hike taxes on mining companies.

Queensland taxpayers will fund a new $1.5m advertising campaign to promote the state’s coal industry and sell the Palaszczuk government’s decision to raise taxes on mining companies last year.

The three-tier coal royalty scheme, which includes the highest taxing rates in the world, funnelled $15bn into government coffers this financial year and delivered Treasurer Cameron Dick the biggest state budget surplus in history.

The marketing campaign spruiks the royalty windfall, which will help bankroll “inland energy and dams”, a new hospital in the coalmining town of Moranbah and support local sporting clubs.

But the royalty system has drawn strong criticism from the resource industry, which claims it is threatening future investment and jobs, and may lead to the closure of mines.

The Queensland Resources Council in November unveiled a $40m two-year campaign titled Keep Queensland Competitive, which it plans to keep running until the October 2024 state election.

Mr Dick said the contrasting publicly funded campaign, which follows a similar $1.1m blitz last year, was to ensure Queenslanders understood the benefits of coalmining.

“If we’re honest, there are some Queenslanders who don’t like coal, who deliberately confuse thermal electricity-generating coal with steelmaking coal and have called on the industry to close,” he said.

“What we need to do is ensure the coalmining industry in particular continues with social licence in Queensland and that Queenslanders understand the benefits that flow from that industry to them.”

QRC chief Ian Macfarlane said even before new royalty tiers were introduced last year, mining companies paid substantially to help fund government services and infrastructure such as hospitals, roads and schools.

“There needs to be a balance between what the Queensland government takes from the resources sector and what it leaves, to encourage companies to continue to invest in projects here,” he said.

Defending the use of taxpayer money to sell its royalty regime during a cost-of-living crisis, Mr Dick said it was a “modest” spend compared with the QRC campaign.