Queensland election: Townsville Labor mayor breaks ranks in favour of coal power

Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill has backed the possibility of a coal-fired base-load power station in north Queensland.

Mayor Jenny Hill wants cheap, reliable power for north Queensland. Picture: Wesley Monts

Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill has broken ranks with the Labor Party by backing the possibility of a coal-fired base-load power station in north Queensland.

Ms Hill, a long-time party member and friend of Annastacia Palaszczuk, said she did not care if the power station was fuelled by coal or “dead cats” as long as it provided cheap, reliable power for the region.

Her comments contradicted the Labor government’s dismissal of the need for the region to have a coal-fired base-load power station, which has been proposed as a centrepiece of the Liberal National Party’s election campaign.

The LNP has pledged to help organise a coal-fired power station in the north — likely in Collinsville in the Burdekin electorate south of Townsville.

Asked whether her support for the Adani mine and the coal industry translated into support for a coal-fired power station, Ms Hill said she was open to possibilities.

“I don’t care if the thing is ­fuelled by dead cats, all I want is cheap power,” she said. “Whoever can build that, it doesn’t matter what fuel you use, the issue is what it is going to cost at the end.”

Asked if she’d be happy for coal to be used, Ms Hill said she wanted an audit of what was available in Townsville and a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether ­existing operations could be moved to base-load.

She still had not seen any ­reports on what the best option was but suggested converting one of two existing Townsville-based peak-load gas-fired stations to provide base-load power could be a quicker option.

“If they were you would probably find that could give us a fairly cheap option without having to wait eight years for another ­option, whether it’s gas or coal,” Ms Hill said.

Her comments add fuel to what has become a burning issue in the north, where several Labor seats are threatened by the LNP and One Nation, which also supports a coal-fired power station.

Labor has committed to a ­renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030.

LNP leader Tim Nicholls, who was in Townsville yesterday to ­announce the party’s crime policy, said Labor’s division was because of a “desperate bid for green preferences in Brisbane”.

“Labor is hopelessly divided when it comes to a coal-fired power station for the north and cannot be trusted to deliver cheaper electricity,” he said.

Former Burdekin Shire councillor Mike Brunker, who is contesting the seat of Burdekin for Labor against sitting LNP MP Dale Last and One Nation’s Sam Cox, said he supported coal and coal-fired power stations.

But Mr Brunker said the peak-load Collinsville power station closing during the Newman Government’s time in office showed there was not enough demand for a base-load station.

“If a peak-load station can’t survive, and they (the Newman Government) did stuff-all about it back then, why is the urgency now for a base-load station simply just to wedge the Labor party,” he said.

Ms Palaszczuk came out swinging this week against a leaked ­report commissioned by the government that backed the ­viability of the proposal for a coal-fired power station to be built by the private sector in north Queensland.

The report found an “ultra-­supercritical’’ power station would be profitable, even if prices dropped from the current $100 a megawatt hour to $50MW/h, ­despite Labor claims that the project would never be built because it “did not stack up”.