George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

North Queenslanders must have been scratching their heads yesterday when the Labor premier of Queensland ruled out support for cheaper power and local jobs, saying:

There is no need for a new coal-fired power station for Queensland. I have ruled that out.

The Premier's own Productivity Commission released a report in 2016 showing that the cost of electricity in Queensland did not rise for the 26 years from 1980-81 to 2006-07 but in the nine years after increased some 87 per cent. During those nine years billions of taxpayer dollars were spent on pushing intermittent and unreliable energy into the system. The correlation between dependence upon renewables and power costs has been borne out around the world. Countries with a higher dependence upon renewables are also the countries with the highest That's why we urgently need to push more cheap and reliable baseload energy into the system. At the national level this Liberal-National government has sought to introduce a baseload power incentive scheme that potential investors now say will encourage investment in coal-fired power. It's a great shame that Labor's Queensland premier does not want investment in jobs and cheaper power in her own state. Queensland has the most abundant, best-quality, cheapest coal in the world but it also now has a Labor premier who has ruled out letting Queenslanders enjoy the benefits that coal is delivering to other nations around the world. We'll do it without her with the private sector.