Newsroom

May 3, 2024

FORMER Queensland Energy Minister Bob Katter has labelled the State Premier’s $1000 electricity “vote-buying” handout an “insult to the intelligence of the Queensland people.”

Mr Katter said the $1000 per household initiative, set to cost $2.5bn, and being labelled as cost-of-living relief was not fooling anyone as a blatant vote-buying exercise which ignored the root cause of the electricity woes.

He said the move would do more harm than good, by providing a temporary false sense of security for householders, while failing to address electricity supply and prices.

“Let's be technical, what you are doing, is increasing demand without increasing supply, obviously, that will have an inflationary effect,” Mr Katter said.

“To understand economics, particularly governmental economics, you really must go to the Whitlam years - where he doubled welfare payments, he gave huge amounts of money to First Australians, increased pensions - he just doubled the money going to people in Australia.

“I must emphasise, they were all good things to do, but unless you increase the productivity of your country, it's just more money with the same amount of goods and services - inflation.” Mr Katter said instead, the $2.5bn could be spent on projects and initiatives that generate goods and services, including electricity.

“If you build Hells Gates Dam, you get hydro power generation increasing our supply, and you expand agriculture; you’re actually producing goods and creating incomes, putting money in people’s pockets the right way.

“If you build the new-generation sugar mill, north of Ingham, you can be converting sugar cane into ethanol, increasing our fuel supply, and generating electricity from the by-product of crushing cane – bagasse.”

According to the Australian Sugar Milling Council, Queensland’s sugar mills already generate over a quarter (27 per cent) of Queensland’s renewable energy, however this could be further increased with government investment. [1]

“If the Premier does this, this would actually generate additional electricity supply, while also generating goods and services from the same projects, and put downward pressure on inflation, rather than a one-off early Christmas present.

“But if you try and insult the people by trying to buy their votes, I think that’s counterproductive.

“But, if people think giving the LNP a landslide victory is going to be a good thing, think again. In fact, it would be hard for me to name a single thing that would change under the LNP.