Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank again the senator for his question. To deliver those dams, to create more irrigation, we need secure electricity as well. We need to pump that water, and we need energy in the North as well. It is difficult because prices for electricity in the North are high. They are high—we do not have as much access to baseload as other parts of the country—but it is going to be made even harder in North Queensland if the Queensland government is successful in progressing a 50 per cent renewable energy target in that state. It is an unachievable, unrealistic target.

But it is very interesting, I think, that, in their reports that they released yesterday, the Queensland government, on page 71, footnote 69, say:

Each of the policy credible pathways considered already includes a carbon price imposed on the electricity sector.

So that is the way they are going to meet the renewable energy target: they are going to put a carbon tax on Queenslanders to meet their renewable energy target. They say there is no cost for Queenslanders. There will be a cost, because they support a carbon tax, just like the Labor Party does here.