Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has called for the NSW, Victorian and federal governments to fund a gas pipeline from Queensland to southern states to ease power price pressures.
The Albanese government is considering gas market spot price caps and potential subsidies in a bid to curb rising retail power bills.
The Queensland premier has rejected those ideas, saying NSW, Victoria and the Commonwealth should foot the bill for a new pipeline connecting gas fields in her state to southern markets.
Palaszczuk says Queensland has “an abundance of gas”, with reserves totalling 13,000 petajoules in the Bowen Basin and further reserves in the Galilee Basin.
“What the federal government should consider, in conjunction with NSW and the Victorian governments, is building a pipeline,” she told parliament on Thursday.
“If the issue is of supply for energy for gas to get to those southern states, there is a solution that I’m putting on the table that is readily available, and they will be able to pay for that pipeline, and we would release that extra domestic gas.
“That is an option that is very, very conceivable.”
The state government has been consulting the gas industry on whether to build a 500km pipeline out of the Bowen Basin.
The project was suggested in its own long-term resources plan, released in June.
Earlier this week, Palaszczuk called for NSW and Victoria to open up more gas fields to producers.
She is also strongly opposed to fossil fuel price caps, particularly on coal, calling for compensation if they’re implemented.
The Queensland government believes a cap would eat into budget revenue from public coal-fired electricity generators and mines, which are used to pay household power bill rebates.
“Let me state, categorically, in this house again today, that in relation to our coal-fired power generators - we will not jeopardise the direct household benefits that we are able to give Queenslanders that actually ease the cost of living pressures, and we can do that because our assets are in public hands,” Palaszczuk said.
The Commonwealth is still in discussions with the states and territories over energy policy options.
In the recent budget, the Treasury forecasted retail power prices would rise 20 per cent by late 2022 and another 30 percent in 2023/24.
Gas prices are forecast to rise by 44 percent during the same period.
