Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I bring to the attention of the House the dire situation that farmers and businesses in the Pioneer Valley and Eungella region are finding themselves in. On 28 September last year, the Queensland state government announced a plan for a pumped hydro scheme to be built in the Pioneer Valley, located west of Mackay, in my electorate of Capricornia. As is the case with most announcements from the Labor government, it came out of nowhere, with little to no research and not one resident from the Pioneer Valley consulted. The local community was shocked to learn, through various media platforms, of the state government's plan to acquire their homes and land. The proposed $12 billion pumped hydro scheme, with $32 million committed by the federal Labor government in the October budget, will impact 79 properties in the Pioneer Valley, destroying prime agricultural land and one of Queensland's unique areas of rainforest wilderness. The road through the Pioneer Valley will also be inundated, in which case it will be need to be realigned. Just to defy logic even more, this project is for energy production only and has no planned use for water storage. The environmental impact assessment will take three to four years to complete, and it's going to take two wet seasons to fill the dam.

Queensland is currently experiencing an abundance of unseasonal rainfall. This presents a perfect opportunity to store water for future seasons of drought, yet the proposed hydro scheme has not been designed to hold a single drop of water to provide the water security vital to Central Queensland. There will be no water available for agriculture, tourism or urban use. To say this announcement was made to distract from the real issues Central Queenslanders are currently facing is an understatement. The lack of housing, the state health crisis and the drastic increase in youth crime are being glossed over by the Labor government in its fixation on climate targets.

Following the announcement by the Premier, I visited the residents and some of the properties that will be affected in the Pioneer Valley. Some had thought it was a late April Fools' Day joke when they heard their land would be inundated with water and turned into a reservoir. They reported to me that, in the time since the project was announced, many had been unable to sleep or eat. This should come as no surprise, given that the legacy that residents plan to pass on to their families is going to be ripped away. Following the announcement, many are still living with anxiety and depression, with a now uncertain future. They are questioning: where do we go?

Apart from the shock and stress that has been caused to the residents of this tight-knit community, the question needs to be asked: why is the Queensland state government wasting taxpayers' money on a project that clearly has had minimal prior planning and will take 10 years to build? This begs the question: why not Urannah Dam? I have lobbied for Urannah Dam for years. When in government, the coalition committed $483 million to the Urannah Dam project, which would transform the north and provide water security for the nearby towns and dozens of resource projects. The No. 1 reason the Urannah Dam project is a superior model to the proposed pumped hydro scheme is that it is ready to go. Urannah Dam is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to open new areas of agricultural land, and it stands to unlock long-term and sustainable irrigation for Queensland farmers, property owners and primary producers. The high position and deep structure of Urannah Dam delivers 80 per cent of the capacity of the Burdekin Falls Dam, while covering less than 20 per cent of the land. Another point that makes the pumped hydro scheme project an inferior model to Urannah Dam is the fact that studies confirm the Urannah Dam site has the heaviest and most reliable rainfall. The economic benefits are expected to generate $323 million over a 25-year period and provide a major boost to local businesses in the area. Up to 1,200 jobs will be provided in the construction phase of the Urannah Dam project, with 650 new jobs on offer when the project is operational.

The path to providing water security, reliable catchments and a large-scale pumped hydro plant producing clean energy for this region has been made glaringly obvious. It is for the Labor government to deliver on the funding that was committed by the coalition to complete the Urannah Dam project. Central and northern Queensland needs a reliable action plan for future water storage, farm irrigation, water catchments and pumped-hydro clean energy. The groundwork is done on the Urannah Dam project. It ticks every box and, most importantly, will not cause the emotional upheaval to the valued local community of the Pioneer Valley.