By JONATHON HOWARD
GREENS candidate for the state seat of Noosa Joe Shlegeris has slammed Campbell Newman’s state funding of the Galilee Basin coal development as a “scandal”.
He is now urging conservative voters to think about the financial implications of Queensland’s future commitment to coal, which he believes is a bottemless pit of government subsidies.
“The $2 billion railway line, along with all of the other infrastructure, will be a total waste of money – no bank will fund this development because it is an obvious loser,” he said.
Mr Shlegeris said the rail infrastructure can only deliver a return if the price of coal doubles from the present level and then stays high for decades.
“The banks and the big investment houses know that won’t happen,” he said.
“This government thinks that by wasting taxpayer money on a dud project that they can somehow make it work.
“The Indian company behind this project is wisely sitting back and waiting until the state has committed billions of taxpayer dollars.
“Untold billions of government handouts couldn’t keep Holden, Ford, or Mitsubishi in Australia, despite the fact that the world still buys cars.
Mr Shlegeris said the Queensland Government imagines that by wasting billions of taxpayer money it can reverse the worldwide trend away from coal.
“China’s coal imports have fallen by half in the past year,” he said.
“The cost of every superior way of generating electricity is falling fast.
“And there’s the nonsense about jobs. The government suggests that this development will create thousands of jobs. The people to fill those jobs won’t come off the dole queue. They’ll come out of jobs in other, generally smaller businesses.
“Those businesses will be further starved of the skilled staff they require.
“If this government were managing your family’s investments and made a one-way, all-in bet on coal, you would sack your manager today.”
