Crisafulli's coal and gas agenda putting fossil fuel profits first

The Queensland Conservation Council has slammed the Crisafulli Government's cynical announcement of new coal and exploration areas as a pure exercise in building fossil fuel company profits at the expense of Queensland's future.

Queensland Conservation Council Coal and Gas Campaigner, Ms Charlie Cox, says

Fossil fuel corporations have been profiting off Queensland’s resources for decades, while communities are left with higher power prices, pollution and climate impacts. This announcement is just the Crisafulli Government digging further into a backwards coal and gas agenda when we need to be focused on energy supplies that will bring long term protection for our communities and our energy prices.

We don’t need more gas, we need to rein the gas companies in to stop them exporting our gas instead of supplying Queensland families and businesses. Opening up new gas fields for exploration, and committing only a third of those to the domestic market, is not reining in the corporations like Santos who are buying gas on the domestic market and selling it to support their own failing fields. It’s actively rewarding them, and Queenslanders should be angry.

The Crisafulli Government has committed to a 75% emissions reduction target. There is no credible path to this, or even net zero, that includes new gas projects. By repealing our renewable energy targets and now actively encouraging more fossil fuel development, the Crisafulli Government is driving up emissions, which will lock in more climate pollution, more extreme weather and more profit for fossil fuel corporations.

The Crisafulli Government’s energy policy is clearly driven by an ideology to support coal, gas and now oil which will hurt Queensland communities and drive up power bills. We need to see well planned new renewable energy backed by storage to keep Queensland’s electricity affordable and reliable into the future.

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