Coal news and updates

The Queensland government is planning to use a windfall from rising coal royalties to boost jobs growth in regions thought to be fertile ground for One Nation.

 

The Palaszczuk government is expected to announce an economic stimulus package targeting areas that have not benefited from the state’s employment recovery, using a $1bn state budget boost driven by coal exports.

 

The treasurer, Curtis Pitt, will unveil the jobs and business package as part of a midyear fiscal and economic review to be released on Tuesday.

The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, told the Courier-Mail that “while the Queensland unemployment rate is down, it is stubbornly high in a number of regions with the prolonged drought and mining downturn”.

 

Queensland’s unemployment rate recently fell to a three-year low of 5.8% but areas outside the south-east corner, including Townsville, remain among Australia’s worst jobless hotspots.

 

The forecast recovery of Queensland coal royalties belied a report released by the International Energy Agency on Monday, which said world coal consumption was likely to have declined in 2016 and that seaborne exports would shrink again in 2017.

 

The opposition employment spokesman, Jarrod Bleijie, criticised the “latest reincarnation of a so-called jobs plan that proves the past two have been abject failures”.

 

Bleijie said the government’s $100m Back To Work package had promised to create 8,000 jobs but so far had delivered fewer than 1,000, “a complete and utter failure by anyone’s standard”.

 

He said latest figures showed youth unemployment in many regions had “skyrocketed”, including in outback Queensland (33.7%), Cairns (27.4%) and Wide Bay (23.8%).

 

One Nation commands a primary vote of 16% statewide, according to a recent Galaxy poll, a rise political observers speculate is driven by economic insecurity and disillusion with mainstream parties that both face losing chunks of their blue collar and semi-rural bases.

 

Figures in the Labor government hold mixed views of the challenge posed by One Nation, with some wary that Pauline Hanson’s return to prominence through the federal Senate will allow her party to capitalise on voter discontent in struggling regional economies.

SOurce: The Guardian