• Federal Labor leader is continuing to hurt the people of North Queensland by failing to back crucial infrastructure projects

• Labor’s plan for another carbon tax will drive up household electricity prices by $170 a year

• Annastacia Palaszczuk’s plan for a 50 per cent renewable target assumes a carbon tax of between $25 to $80 a tonne – which will hurt families and seniors

The credibility of Federal Labor Leader Bill Shorten in North Queensland is in tatters after he failed to support Adani’s Carmichael mine in the Galilee Basin, failed to support a baseload power station and called for the introduction of a carbon tax.

Shadow Mines and Northern Development Minister Andrew Cripps said Bill Shorten’s visit to Townsville yesterday had resulted in a policy “brain explosion” trifecta which amounted to a direct attack on North Queensland jobs.

“Bill Shorten could not have picked three worse issues to double-cross North Queenslanders on, because all of them are about jobs and that’s the region’s number one priority – it’s appalling he doesn’t understand that,” Mr Cripps said.

“He’s revealed Labor’s plan for another carbon tax that will drive up household electricity prices by $170 a year, hurt Queensland businesses and cost Queenslanders jobs.

“Queenslanders know that Mr Shorten’s ‘emissions intensity scheme’ is just a carbon tax by another name.

“Adani’s Carmichael mine project has been assessed and scrutinised at length – it will open up the Galilee Basin and North and Central Queensland are desperate for the investment and the jobs that it will create in local communities.

“Existing companies and potential investors in new projects are constantly raising the issue of power prices in North Queensland and we are finally getting some momentum behind the campaign for new baseload power generation in our region.”

Mr Cripps said the war against the carbon tax had been fought and won.

“It’s a tax on production, it’s a tax on the cost of living and most of all, it’s a tax on jobs and North Queenslanders won’t stand for such rubbish from Labor and the Greens,” he said.

“Despite this, Annastacia Palaszczuk’s plan for a 50 per cent renewable target assumes a carbon tax of between $25 to $80 a tonne, hurting families and seniors.

“And Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Energy Minister Mark Bailey has been arguing for a national carbon tax through COAG.”

Mr Cripps said he was amazed Labor’s Federal MP for Herbert Cathy O’Toole had not warned her leader that industry and the community had reached a consensus in North Queensland in favour of Adani’s project and the need for baseload power.

“I can’t work out if she has kept Shorten in the dark on purpose, or if O’Toole herself is completely out of touch with her own electorate and the clear need to encourage, not undermine, these efforts to attract investment to North Queensland,” Mr Cripps said.

“The LNP has been very clear about where we stand – we want Adani’s project to go ahead, we support baseload power generation in North Queensland and we will fight against a job-destroying carbon tax – you can’t say the same about Labor.”

Mr Cripps warned that this type of basic policy uncertainty on issues critical to economic development meant a future Federal Labor Government led by Bill Shorten was clearly a threat to jobs in local communities across North Queensland.