June 8, 2022
Katter’s Australia Party (KAP) MPs have called on the Palaszczuk Labor Government to urgently commit to keeping the 700mw Callide B coal-fired power station online until at least 2038.
The wholly-State Government-owned Callide B generator will reach end-of-life in 2028, but it’s understood with the necessary investment it can be kept online for at least another decade.
KAP Leader Robbie Katter said Queensland was staring down the barrel of a full-blown energy crisis, and lashed successive State and Federal Governments for exposing our resource-rich nation to such unbearable risk.
“We are calling on the Queensland Government to allay community fears and urgently invest in the future of the 700MW Callide B coal-fired power station to ensure it stays online until at least 2038,” he said.
“Callide, home to coal mines, gas exploration and power stations, is ground zero when it comes to the climate wars consuming the country.
“In their mindless, and ideologically-motivated, attempts to ‘out-green the Greens’ and appease affluent inner-city voters on the Net Zero catch-cry, the major parties have driven Australia to its absolute brink.
“We should be enjoying the cheapest power in the world, but instead we are feeling the effects of the renewables lie that we have been spoon-fed for the better part of two decades.
“When it comes to the renewables revolution it would appear the ‘emperor has no clothes’ – it’s a fallacy, and we paying for it now.”
Mr Katter was speaking while in Rockhampton today with the KAP’s candidate for the June 18 Callide By-election, Adam Burling.
Mr Burling, a coal miner, said Callide was the State’s engine room and had been repeatedly sold-out by the major parties in recent years.
“Labor or Liberal, it doesn’t matter anymore – they may as well merge with the Greens on the issues that truly matter in Callide,” he said.
“The fear in places like Biloela and Chinchilla is that their core workforces, and therefore their communities, will cease to exist if Australia does not address the lingering baseload power question.
“We either need out current industries, like coal and gas kept on-line, or we need a realistic and sustainable transition that doesn’t send our country to the wall.
“Renewables are welcome in the energy mix but without fossil fuels or nuclear, we have no security of supply – we are already feeling the impacts of the energy crisis now.
“D-day is looming.”
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