Opinion: Power in Qld hands - but we’re not allowed to use it

Queensland is a great state built on the back of great industries. Instead of demonising our coal industry, stalling investment and driving up our power bills, we must return to producing things in the best way we can, writes Matt Canavan.

Before we started shutting down large coal fired power stations in Australia, the average Queensland electricity bill was around $1300 per year.

Now that we are a country without adequate power supplies, we pay $1900 per year.

Yet the Queensland Labor Government wants credit for giving us “back” a $550 rebate on our power bills. We are still $50 behind!

Labor is funding this power bill, money-go-round through massive taxes on our record exports of ... (checks notes) ... COAL!

So we are told we cannot have coal fired power stations anymore because they will blow up the planet. We all pay through the roof for electricity as a result. Then we tax the coal industry (which allegedly won’t exist for much longer) to bail people out of the crushing increase in prices.

It would have been easier just to keep our coal fired power stations open. Then we could have had lower power prices and high royalty revenues to spend on improving our health system, rather than funding cash splashes.

Coat ready for export at Gladstone’s port. File picture

Other, more sensible countries are ignoring the anti-coal edict and are building coal fired power stations like they are going out of fashion. China is building two coal fired power stations a week this year.

Which explains why we have record demand for Queensland coal at record prices. Over the past year, coal prices have been at three times their normal level. The Queensland Government has taken the opportunity to whack massive new taxes on the coal industry. The 40 per cent royalty rate is the highest in the world.

Taxes this high are like eating a bucket of ice cream in one sitting. It feels good at the time but it is going to come back to bite you.

Because of high taxes, new investment in Queensland coal has come to a standstill. The International Energy Agency recently showed that investment in Australia’s coal industry is $6 billion a year lower than expected given how high prices have been.

Funnily enough that $6 billion is not far below the extra revenue the Queensland Government is stripping out every year from the coal industry through its higher taxes. So that money is not being invested to maintain a strong economic industry for Queensland’s future, it is being splashed around in cash handouts today.

This is not sustainable. We won’t be able to subsidise our power bills if our coal industry is not as strong in the future.

Worse, barely any of these increased taxes are going back into the regions that produce the wealth for Queensland. The Government claims that it is investing $10 billion in energy projects for regional Queensland but these are all on vanity renewable energy projects that destroy our landscapes, ride roughshod over our property rights and provide very few long term jobs.

Most of the spending goes towards two massive pumped hydro projects which will flood people’s homes and destroy the habitats of endangered species. The Government plans to blanket regional Queensland with wind turbines placed on hilltops which are often the last reserves for koala species.

You won’t find too many wind turbines in the city yet people in the bush must have their peace of mind destroyed thanks to massive industrial towers looming over them. All to help ease the moral guilt of the exorbitant, carbon-intensive lifestyles of some in our inner-cities.

Queensland is a great state that has been built on the back of great industries.

Our Queensland identity is entwined with what we produce. We are banana benders, we watch lightning crack over cane fields, it was a Queensland shearer that grabbed the jumbuck and our national airline starts with the letter ‘Q’. We mine coal, copper, gas, and bauxite. We make aluminium and zinc. And we grow cattle, cotton, grains and sheep. The lights would go out if it were not for the surplus of coal-fired power we (for now) create in Queensland.

Cash splashes funded by high taxes risks our reputation and our future prosperity. High taxes and high government spending just create problems that our kids will have to clean up. There is still time for us to return to the common sense of producing things in the best way we can so everyone can have a good job and afford to pay their bills.

Originally published as Opinion: Power in Qld hands - but we’re not allowed to use it