Union slams feds over Kidston 2 loan deal to private energy company
Calls on state govt and opposition to stand up against “backdoor privatisation”
The Electrical Trades Union called on the state government to reject the $516M federal loan to private energy company Genex for its Kidston 2 Project in Far North Queensland calling it privatisation by the backdoor.
The Union’s Queensland NT State Secretary Peter Ong said it was yet another case of the federal government intervening in state affairs and imposing its toxic agenda on the people of Queensland via the backdoor.
“We all remember the threats prior to the 2015 state election where the federal LNP government warned that states needed to sell assets to get infrastructure spending, remember they used the term asset recycling well they are at it again, only this time via the backdoor,” Ong said.
“This is a sneaky, underhand way of privatising ours state assets through backdoor deals with private companies in direct contravention of the state government and state LNP’s supposed anti-privatisation policy positions,” he said.
“The ALP has won two state elections on the back of a strong and explicit policy of not privatising the state’s electricity assets, yet we now see the state’s future generation assets being owned and operated by private companies and further that the sell-off is being aided and abetted by the federal government, it’s despicable.”
“Where is the outrage from Frecklington and the LNP who would have us believe they are now opposed to privatisation, I say here’s your chance to prove it, or was it just window dressing and populism?”
But as with the issues that continue to frustrate the Electrical Trades Union and its members about the state government’s response to this issue and others in the solar industry it is the government’s silence and failure to stand up and be counted on a fundamental issue of trust.
“The ALP state government must stand up for Queenslanders first, yes we need investment in FNQ but the feds propping up a private energy company to enable it the private energy company to own and operate a piece of critical energy infrastructure is a betrayal of their stated policy and it’s a betrayal of the Queensland voters who trusted them to stand up on this issue”
“A failure to stand up on this issue will be viewed as yet another failure of this state government to actually do what it was elected to do, protect assets and protect jobs in this state”
For further comment please contact : Peter Ong 0419 721 046 or Andrew Irvine 0448 633 858