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CARMICHAEL
CALAMITY
With an election campaign on the go, it seems that
caretaker Queensland Premier Anastacia Palaszczuk
has conveniently forgotten her previous beliefs and
some of her friends too.I
n a fairly surprising turn in the Queensland election campaign
Palaszczuk announced that she would veto any Northern
Australia Infrastructure Fund loan to Adani Mining for its
controversial Carmichael coal project.
h e NAIF funding has been requested to help pay for a common
user rail facility from the Galilee Basin in Queensland’s north to
Abbot Point port.
Palaszczuk’s reason for announcing the veto is apparently due to
the fact her partner Shaun Dabsch worked on the Adani funding
request at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
As has been rather rapidly pointed out to Palaszczuk, if she knocks
back the funding, then the NAIF loan is dead in the water because the
state government has to be a party to it.
Adani has said it does not really need the NAIF. Maybe not, but it is
i ghting an uphill funding battle for the $16.5 billion project because
Australian banks seem to be running a mile from it at the moment.
So, Palaszczuk has seemingly slammed the door on the project
getting federal funding and has also been umming and ahing about
proposed royalty relief for the project.
She has also upset one of her friends in Townsville Mayor Jenny
Hill, who only a short time ago was cock-a-hoop about Townsville
being named one of Adani’s l y-in, l y-out hubs.
Mind you, Hill probably started it when she broke ranks from
Labor and sided with the Liberal-National Party over a proposed
coal-i red power station in Queensland’s north.
Palaszczuk has been adamant that a coal-i red power plant in the
state’s north is not needed and that renewables will i ll the void just
nicely. Okay, so she is down on a coal-i red power plant but it had
seemed Palaszczuk was heavily in favour of the Adani mine.
Not so long ago she loudly and proudly trumpeted the fact that she
had led a delegation to India that included mayors from Townsville and
Rockhampton, to smooth the way for the mine to come to fruition.
She was also pretty pleased when word dropped that Rockhampton
and Townsville had been named co-FIFO hubs for the project.
Oh, how quickly they forget.
h e moment the election campaign starts and groups such as Get
Up start mounting a Stop Adani Campaign and suddenly Palaszczuk
is all about vetoing the project’s funding.
Writing in h e Australian, former Labor political Svengali Graham
Richardson was critical of her approach. He reckons that by denying
the Adani loan Palaszczuk may have shored up a couple of inner-
Brisbane seats but potentially damaged here chances in 10 north
Queensland ones.
Time will tell. – Noel DysonAustralia’s Mining Monthly
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