Australians understand that a job provides security.
 
A job means you can raise a family and pursue your aspirations.
 
That’s why it is so bewildering that Northern Australia Minister Keith Pitt is refusing to get behind a renewable energy project in north Queensland that would create 250 good, secure jobs.
 
Mr Pitt is responsible for the government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF), established in 2016 to leverage private investment into job-creating projects in our nation’s north.
 
The NAIF board wants to back French firm Neoen’s proposed $370m Green Energy Hub, about 80km south of Cairns.
 
Neoen says the project would provide 250 jobs and cut power prices by $461m over 30 years.
 
However, Mr Pitt has used his power of veto to override the board.
 
This is a betrayal of the people of Cairns, which is represented by Liberal MP Warren Entsch, who needs to have a word to his colleague.
 
For years, Mr Pitt has been contemptuous of renewable energy.
 
Like King Canute trying to hold back the tide, he pretends Australia can somehow ignore the global shift toward greater use of renewables to reduce power prices while reducing emissions.
 
Whether Mr Pitt likes it or not, renewable energy is on the rise.
 
Over the past two decades, the private sector has pumped more than $50bn into renewables in this nation.
 
Last year, Mr Pitt secured a $4.3m grant for a feasibility study for a coal-powered power station at Collinsville, in a process later criticised by the Auditor General.
 
Private investors did not want to bankroll the Collinsville proposal.
 
So while Mr Pitt will provide public investment for a project in which private investors have no interest, he has vetoed a project where a private investor is ready to roll and create 250 jobs.
 
Queensland needs more jobs.
 
Governments do not exist to hold back the tide.
 

 
This opinion piece was first published in the Courier Mail on Wednesday, 12 May 2021.