From Barnaby Dunce, deputy Prime Minister of QLD:
Deputy Prime Minister [of QLD] and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has backed federal financial support for Indian company Adani Group’s $16.5 billion Carmichael mine.
He said the controversial coal mine and 400-kilometre rail line needed to be built to guarantee jobs for Central Queensland.
As Treasurer Scott Morrison declined to say whether the company should be given a loan from the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, Mr Joyce said state and federal governments needed to do all they could to get the project off the ground.
“When I hear people standing up against development in the Central Queensland coal fields – which is a $16.5 billion job – I ask the question where is the alternative source of income coming from?,” Mr Joyce told the Queensland Media Club in Brisbane on Wednesday.
“We’ve just had a quarter of negative growth, let’s talk about what the solution is. We have the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund. We, the federal government, are trying to work with state governments to drive these agendas forward.
“Let’s get the thing [Adani] project built and get the money flowing. If the loan facilitates this happening or expedites this thing, then I’ve got no problems with the loan.”
Let’s not. Thermal coal is in massive global oversupply. The Adani mine will only collapse its price all the faster, closing more efficient mines in NSW. It will never be built without corporate welfare to support it.
This is literally an example of Keynsian stimulus in which men are employed to dig a hole and then fill it back in again. It will not only not add economic value it will damage it as productivity and income are both hit.
It would be more economically useful to build a 100 meter high statue of the world’s largest phallus with Barnaby Joyce’s face emblazoned across its helmet so Indian and Chinese tourists could come and stroke its base for good fortune.
