Politics, they say, is show-business for ugly people. More and more, though, it’s looking like business for incompetent people. Without exception, the Australian Labor government is made up of people who never worked a day in their adult lives that wasn’t funded by the taxpayer.
And it shows: again and again, the government deludes itself that it knows more about running business than business-people. Time after time, the government tries to jump on what it is convinced is the Next Big Thing in business, also convinced that it has some kind of magic, money-making acumen that actual business doesn’t. Especially when it comes to ‘renewable energy’.
Here’s the thing, though: big business may be often venal, but they’re not stupid. If whatever the government is trying to foist on us this year was such a winner, big business would be in like Flynn. Henry Ford didn’t sell cars by convincing the government to ban horses.
But if he’d been able to convince the government to pay him to make cars? Because big business isn’t stupid enough to turn down a wad of cash when idiotic politicians throw it at them, but it is venal enough to grab it with both hands.
Just ask communist China’s most reliable lapdog in Australia, Andrew Forrest.
Andrew Forrest sprinkled a little magic dust over the captivated Queensland Media Club audience in early 2022 when he described the promise of green hydrogen energy as better than any spell conjured-up in the pages of a Harry Potter book.
Australia’s richest businessman was then touting his plans for the world’s largest electrolyser manufacturing plant and a green hydrogen production facility in Gladstone that was to neighbour the Palaszczuk government-led proposed $12.5bn Central Queensland Hydrogen Project (CQ-H2), which it hoped would become a global exporter of the energy. But three years later, both projects have been abandoned and the Queensland government is about to complete a $1bn water pipeline to Gladstone to service the CQ-H2 project.
The pipeline, to be completed next year, now has no customer.
That’s because ‘green hydrogen’ was never more than an obvious scam. If Forrest had told the Labor governments that he was a Nigerian prince trying to launder money, he’d have been more honest. The stupid politicians fell for it, quicker than an ageing white woman being romanced online by an Indian scammer.
Sources have told the Australian that the incentive agreement struck between Fortescue and the former Labor government was estimated to be worth $92.5m. The state government spent more than $60m, according to the sources, on land and supporting infrastructure for the Fortescue project ahead of it being axed last month.
Gladstone mayor Matt Burnett, who unsuccessfully contested the federal seat of Flynn for federal Labor in 2022, told the Australian on Monday there were serious questions on how infrastructure, particularly the $1bn Fitzroy-to-Gladstone water pipeline, and built for the proposed green hydrogen industry will now be used.
The only real question is, how can these people be so gullible?
Mr Forrest axed the hydrogen projects with an announcement last month it was pulling out of Gladstone.
Because the pipeline of other people’s money dried up. At least the newly elected LNP government wasn’t ready to keep playing the sucker.
Even before Fortescue closed its operations, the Liberal National Party government, which defeated Labor at the October state election, had effectively killed off the CQ-H2 project by refusing a funding request of $1.6bn in January.
In fact, the new government is looking at ways to claw back some of the money Forrest scarfed off the taxpayer.
It can also be revealed the Crisafulli LNP government has engaged lawyers to advise on “remedies” for Mr Forrest’s company, Fortescue, to repay what taxpayers spent in luring his project to the state.
Which adds up to a pretty penny indeed.
It was reported earlier this year that the 2019 initial $12.5bn estimated cost of the project’s construction had blown out to $14.75bn by 2022, and there were further expected blowouts amid the worldwide hike in input costs […]
It is understood the deal included up to $20m in payroll tax rebates over eight years. But a further $72.5m was offered to support the development of the land and enabling infrastructure – including power, wastewater and transport infrastructure – for the manufacturing facility and green hydrogen plant.
Even the federal government is, for once, dimly realising that it’s been scammed.
Already, the federal government has announced it will seek repayment of taxpayer assistance provided to Fortescue’s projects in Gladstone under its Modern Manufacturing Initiative.
The MMI, by the way, is a $1.3 billion Albanese government programme.
In other words, just because they’ve been burned once doesn’t mean the idiots in government have learned their lesson. Then again, it’s easy to throw away money when it’s not yours.
