Media Release

KAP Leader and Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter, State Member for Mount Isa Robbie Katter and State Member for Dalrymple Shane Knuth today wrapped up their three day tour of the Kennedy electorate with Clean Energy Finance Corporation CEO Oliver Yates and GHD Engineering Power Advisor John O’Brien.

The trip saw them take in the cities of Mount Isa, Charters Towers and Townsville where they met with renewable energy producers Agripower Australia, Renewable Developments Australia and Sunverge, as well as local councils, the respective Chambers of Commerce, farmers, graziers and miners.

Bob Katter said that it was a great honour to have the head of the Clean Energy ‘Bank’ tour the electorate and the importance of the visit to jobs and development could not be overstated for Far North Queensland.

“The Clean Energy Bank parcels out not millions but billions of dollars on a commercial basis,” Mr Katter said.

“Mr Yates was here not only to look at possible funding opportunities, but also to point out what development opportunities exist.

“One of the most important projects is the Upper Burdekin Irrigation Scheme (UBurIS) or Pentland Project, which would deliver base load power to Far North Queensland.

“At the moment we are restrained dramatically, we cannot have industrial development and growth without base load power. UBurIS will give us half of all of our electricity requirements for North Queensland, for the first time in 50 years we will have base load power to enable us to grow.

“The second thing we need is water for our agriculture to grow, we’ve got plenty of water but we can’t dam it or store it to use it. The UBurIS project opens up on a massive scale 120,000 ha of irrigation.

“The third commodity we need is motor vehicle fuels and they will also be produced here in the form of ethanol. Not only does North Queensland need that but Australia needs that.”

Oliver Yates, CEO of Clean Energy Finance Corporation, said that it had been an encouraging three days experiencing the friendly hospitality of North Queensland and their entrepreneurial zeal.

“What you notice in North Queenslanders is entrepreneurial activity to develop tomorrow’s jobs. People are looking at innovative ways that they can reduce their energy costs by looking at renewable alternatives, particularly solar.

“In Townsville, it’s great to see people working on bio-energy projects because the production of power, sugar, ethanol and plastics from plant crops like sorghum is now economically attractive and being increasingly used overseas.

“Bob’s plan in relation to the Upper Burdekin of using water resources more effectively across Australia’s great landscape is a vision that people have had for a period of time, but the time is now. Climates are driving people to look at alternatives.

“Australia should not miss out on using its natural resources to produce a sustainable economic future in the regions with long term local jobs that communities want.

“It’s good to see local members like Bob leading the hard efforts in major projects and he’s passionate about making sure that the region provides these long term jobs.”

Philip Keogan, General Manager of Sunverge Energy said that he was delighted to meet with Bob and Oliver to talk about opportunities in Far North Queensland.

“We see a huge amount of opportunities to deploy our type of technology - we provide a solution that enables storage of energy, solar PV, which we can control using software to reduce the cost of delivering energy.

“The costs of delivering energy in Far North Queensland are very high where we have a spread set of regional towns.

“We think there is a great opportunity here and we look forward to progressing discussions with Government to deploy our technologies.”

Bob Katter said that one of the positive initiatives to come out of the meetings was that Councils could look at proposing joint projects to the Clean Energy Bank.

“They would need to be joint projects as the bank is set up to accommodate $20 million plus projects.

“Mike MacNamara, cattleman, pointed out to us that whilst he is in need of the new complete solar set ups that run night and day, there may be as many as 200 stations, isolated tourist resorts and small mining operations that would fit into the same category.”

Mr Katter sincerely thanked both Oliver Yates and everyone who attended the meetings for their time.

ENDS

Photo 1: John O’Brien, Robbie Katter, Oliver Yates, Bob Katter, Mount Isa Lookout.

Photo 2: Bob Katter, Shane Knuth, Oliver Yates and John O’Brien at the Burdekin River, UBurIS site.